UnInVited
by Sarah Rose Serena
Summary: In a new city, a whole new world practically, Elena finds herself haunted by nightmares of days gone by and the dark seduction of an undying man who just refuses to let her be. He won't give up until he gets what he wants. And what he wants above all else is her. But she knows how pretty lies can hide ugly truths. Can bury heinous evils. So she won't give in. Not on her life.
1. Prelude

**UnInVited  
**a _Vampire Diaries_ story

* * *

_**The 13th**_

Nightfall swallowed the city and was asphyxiating as ever. Darkness was so impenetrable that she felt a shiver run up her spine whenever she glanced out her windows. The streetlamps which lined the sidewalks never came on, which was unusual, but who did she call to take care of it? And at this time of night, who would answer?

As she found herself fixated on the sight of her fingertips skating across the wavy glass of her living room window, nails bitten to the quick and burgundy polish chipped to pieces, a new sense of unease pricked at her nerves. Hazel eyes cast past the glass, vision glazed, hoods circled with sleep-deprived bruises, staring out at the rusted old fire escape.

Waiting for him to come. Wanting almost as much as dreading.

Would tonight be the night? Elena wondered. She could feel the hollow ache in her chest, feel the yearning tingle deep in her bones, and with it knew that she wouldn't last another night. She wouldn't be able to say _no_ even once more.

The shadows seemed to come alive tonight, as if they knew, as if there were more like him out there now. Watching. Waiting. Biding their time. Would they leap out for her? Would they hide until the moment she stepped foot past the shield of her threshold? Would they rush to tear her throat open? Or was it only him out there? Only her dangerous stranger?

Ultimately, though she couldn't drag her mind away from the wonderings of just what could be hiding in those unbroken shadows surrounding her, Elena convinced herself that she was being ridiculous. It was just the dark — the same one which came at every moonrise and left with every sunup. It was only nerves. Normal anxiety.

After all, she was still so unused to being on her own. The apartment was still so new, still so unfamiliar, and the city still so strange. That's all, she told herself.

It was seven months to the day from the death of her mother. Three months since she left home and never looked back.

That was why she was pacing. Heart racing. Breathless. That was all.

* * *

**TBC**


	2. First

**Seven Days Earlier**

* * *

Elena returned home from work later than she'd intended, just barely making it over the threshold before sundown. It was a close call that had her heart racing for a good half an hour after rotating the deadbolt and clasping the security chain. Not that those precautions would keep her safe from what she was afraid of. No, she could leave the door unlocked, leave it open even, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

She carried a taser in her handbag for the everyman creeps that clogged up the backstreets of this city. Both her work and her home were on opposite ends, meaning she passed through the seediest sections of town pretty much on a daily basis. Hell, she was on first name basis with most of those sewer rats by now. They weren't what she was afraid of. Not even close.

The only true protection she had was given by the fine line of the doorway and her own determination to keep those two dangerous little words from escaping.

She was a stubborn girl, her father always said. Hardheaded enough to drive any man to drink, he claimed. That was all that had kept her safe these last three months — her unshakable resolve.

Only it wasn't as unshakable as she initially believed. In fact, it had been shaking quite frequently these last few weeks.

The strain of it all was piling on, proving too much for even Elena's obstinacy. Those reasons for staying strong were beginning to fade with each weary day that passed her by. While one aspect of her fear lessened, another grew even more intense. But the fear wasn't going to be enough to keep her steady, she knew. Sooner or later, she would give in. That knowledge, as certain of it as she was, absolutely terrified her.

But this night was different. There was something in the air, something beyond the unsettling element to the darkness that suffocated the city. The starry sky blackened with clouds that foretold of thunder. But the weatherman hadn't mentioned anything of rain that morning.

Still, she decided she'd stop at the dollar store on her way to work tomorrow and pick up a few candles in case the power went out. Since she couldn't read in the dark, and her book collection was her only source of entertainment lately. She had no TV. And her laptop just sat there, because she couldn't afford both the electricity and an internet provider. Needless to say, though one was useless without the other, it did not go both ways.

She hadn't even gotten around to getting a real bed yet. She'd spent all the money from her savings account on the down payment for the apartment. Mr. Zuko had demanded first and last month's rent, standard procedure. He was nice. He hadn't asked for references or ID, just proof of employment. As long as she had his rent paid, he left her alone. But that first wad of cash she'd handed over really bit a quick chunk out of her funds. Also known as the meager accumulation of her college fund.

After that came essentials like toiletries and kitchenware. Waitressing wasn't a very lucrative career, but it was all she could scrounge up, being underage and all. But her birthday was next month. Then, she promised herself, she would go looking again. Maybe she'd go back to school. Not likely. But not completely beyond the realm of possibility, either.

Elena pulled herself away from the living room window. There were no drapes yet, so she couldn't block them out, but she didn't have to spend another evening staring out all night long. All the windows were locked. The door was bolted. Her prepaid cell phone had minutes and was all charged up. She was safe. Or as safe as she could get.

No lock in the world would keep away her _theoretically_ unwanted visitor.

"I am a persistent creature," he had told her once. "One day, I won't come. And you will surely miss me, Elena Gilbert."

"How do you know my name?" she had demanded as her body went cold with dread.

But he had only given her one of those enigmatic smiles he held so well.

She was beginning to think he'd been right. Was it pure fear that had her obsessing all through the days and fretting across the nights until he finally appeared, sometimes barely a moment after dusk, sometimes an hour before dawn, or was there more to that anxiety that had hold of her? She wondered what it would be like should he never return. It felt odd to even think, because she couldn't imagine what she would do then, when she no longer had her stranger to contend with.

After all, as much as she knew she couldn't trust him, as much as that sliver of knowledge of what he was frightened her, he did keep her company. Even when she was in her bitchy mood. Even when she lashed out. Or when she was feeling sad and pitiful. Even when she cried. Or when she would just sit there on her air mattress against the wall and stare into nothingness for hours on end. He wouldn't go away. Really, he never left for good. And when he was gone, he was never very far away.

That both petrified and perversely comforted her. This routine of theirs had become her rock in ways, one stable piece of life that she could cling to. Scary thought, wasn't it? What did that say about her? Did she care?

"What's your name?" she'd asked that very first night.

He only smirked. "When you invite me inside, I'll tell you."

He'd been "her stranger" ever since. And whenever she asked again, he replied the same. Unerringly. Sometimes, he made her laugh. When she wanted to cry, if he felt like it, he could make her forget why. He could make her grin instead until the urge faded away. He could make her _want_. He could make her believe everything was going to be okay. He could make her believe she was perfectly safe, perfectly warm, perfectly happy.

Yet she was still terrified. She still never ventured outside after dark. She still never let him in. And she still never forgot what he was. Or what he really wanted from her.

Nearly every night, her stranger haunted her dreams. Most were pretty decidedly unpleasant, reel after reel of horrific imaginings. All of the things he could do to her. All the horrors she could think of. All the late-night, movie-night, midnight-flick scenarios a hundred years of cinema had ingrained in her brain. One night with her stranger and it all became so real. So very real, and so very dangerous, she knew. Not the enticing kind of danger but the serious kind — the kind that conjured an image of her mother lying broken and alabaster in her bed, amidst a pool of blood that looked so much darker than they made it seem in the movies. Dark and bright, and she had no idea that much blood could come out of one person, never mind her delicately framed mother, the slender woman with a warm smile and secrets that danced in her glittering green eyes.

Eyes she'd given to her daughter.

Eyes Elena saw every time she glanced in the mirror, only her version wasn't lifeless and clouded with gray film that dulled the color and twisted her insides until she was on her knees bowing to the porcelain goddess again.

"I'd never hurt you," he promised with intimate vehemence. Every single time she refused to let him inside. He made her want to believe him. So badly.

But she knew liars. She knew liars with alluring smiles and charming stares. Liars that made a girl picture his hands running over her body every time that thick like honey and smooth like silk voice filled her ears. Liars that would tell her anything to get what they wanted.

Mouths lie. Eyes lie. And every moment she considered the possibility that he was telling her the truth, she went back to the moment she walked in to borrow a pair of earrings and found her mother still in bed from the night before, gone cold and stiff like stone, because a liar wanted her that way. All the words that came before were meaningless. The promises pointless.

She was a lonely soul. And he was seductive in all the right ways. And she wanted _so badly_. But she knew something he didn't. She knew the ending. And she knew it wasn't really worth it. She knew the risk was too great.

Yet despite that knowledge, she continued to play with fire. Every night that he came for her, she grew closer to that deadly edge. She was doing nothing to stop it. So, really, wasn't that just as bad as if she would invite him in?

After stripping out of her threadbare uniform and showering the grease and stench of smoke off of her body, masking it in her hair with honeysuckle shampoo, Elena dressed in a set of her most comfortable pajamas. A pair of boxers rolled at the waistband, hanging low on the swell of her generous hips, and an organic T-shirt with a rock band logo worn off. Then she padded barefoot across the cheap ivory carpeting into the kitchenette and resorted to staring into an empty refrigerator. Maybe if she stood here on one foot, leaning against the door of the fridge, chewing on her lip, boring into the bare racks for long enough, something edible would appear.

Or more realistically, maybe he would know. Maybe he would know that she hadn't had time to stop at the market on her way home, and he would bring her something.

It wouldn't be the first time.

On a particularly grueling evening, she'd returned home starved and penniless. One of her patrons had grabbed her ass, and the backhanded slap he got in return forced Walt, her manager, to deduct it from her pay. She had been grimly prepared to fast for a few days. Less than an hour after sunset, though, her stranger had left a box of Chinese take-out and a pint of mint chocolate ice cream on the fire escape outside her window.

At first, she'd assumed it was a ploy to get her across the threshold. But when she finally ventured out, crackling taser in hand after another hour's worth of arguing with herself, he'd been nowhere in sight. So she'd taken her food back inside without incident and he hadn't returned until the next night.

Like all beautiful liars, her stranger possessed the uncanny ability to know just what she needed and just when to give it to her with seemingly no strings attached.

"Has it ever occurred to you that I could be completely honest? I may not have any insidious motives at all, you know. I may just enjoy your company," he'd teased once when she'd shared her reasoning for keeping him out. He had the most warming grin, one that made her insides melt and her lips curve of their own accord, every time.

When he looked at her with those endlessly dark eyes, ones that seemed to be able to see right through her, to peel away her every layer until she was laid bare for his inspection on a silver platter, with no way to ever hide, she went breathless.

Just the thought of him now made her toes curl.

He could come across so effortlessly as sweet and lovely, so endearing it made her want to cry for what she knew she couldn't let herself have. That old world charm of his got her deep down in her girlish fantasy pieces.

Maybe it was true. Maybe it was real. But it was certainly only a layer, one that hid the darker depths that lurked beneath.

Occasionally, her nightmares bled away and she could feel his arms around her, holding her. It was so real she could feel him beside her, feel the substance of his touch, the simple comfort of his presence, lying together on her thirty dollar mattress with no frame. It was so wonderful that it made her want to let him in. All she had to do, however, was remember her dreams, ones of blood-soaked sheets and syrupy puddles staining a trail from her mother's bedroom window, and she had the strength to push those sweet thoughts away.

It was a struggle, but staying grounded in reality was her only salvation. She'd do whatever it took to keep her resolve. Whatever it took.

Elena let the fridge swing shut with a tired sigh, then crossed back to the living room and collapsed over the arm of the ivory sofa. The solitary piece of plush furniture stood stark as the only focus of the bare room. Because this was his too.

The third time he visited, they fell into a bickering match over her sticks and stones lifestyle. He offered to furnish "this despicable little hovel" for her. She reacted with affronted irritation, telling him that she was perfectly satisfied with her new home and would promptly get around to improvements when she damn well felt like it. Then she told him to shove off. All of which turned out to be an utterly pointless exchange, because the next day she opened her door, late for work, and found the loveseat-sized embroidered sofa taking up the entire hallway.

It looked brand new and smelled of spearmint and night-blooming jasmine. Cushions were plump and unworn, upholstery untainted. There wasn't much else she could do but drag it inside. Or rather, she and Mr. Zuko managed to wrangle it through the narrow doorway and plop it down in the center of the empty apartment.

But the smug look her stranger carried the next time he visited almost made her haul it down to the curb. _Almost_.

Lying stretched on her back with her knees hooked over the arm of the sofa, Elena dragged out one of the wrinkled up old paperbacks that she'd stuffed beneath a cushion the night before. To distract herself from the noiseless grumbling of her stomach and the impatience of waiting for her stranger to show up, she flipped through to the last chapter she'd reached and started in.

The novel centered on a woman named Lucinda, a woman struggling with addiction, not of needles or ambrosia or sex, but of love. Not just love, either, but a self-destructive love. If there was ever any other kind. But that wasn't what Elena was reading the story for. No, she was along for the ride while Lucinda floundered her way through figuring how to deal with her perpetually wacky family, a sprawling bloodline of natural born witches.

That major aspect of the story was lighthearted, irreverent, witty, and plain old fun, which was exactly the reprieve she needed to take her out of her own head. She needed those moments to take the pressure off. She needed them to keep from drowning in this sinkhole of _bad_, because nowadays, there wasn't a moment that she wasn't stressed, scared, or tragically apathetic.

Books were good at taking her away from that for a time. Her stranger was good for that too. Sometimes. Other times, he was another source of fear and stress.

The night this all started, the night they met, she'd been in town less than a week. It was on her third night, in fact. She'd only just come from the restaurant, only just been hired by Walt, when she came across the dry ravine. It was tucked beyond the slope of the business street, hidden from traffic, protected from the lights of the city by the six-foot field of wheat and weeds that wrapped around it. Within the circle of the clearing, a fire pit raged. The flicker of flame was what drew her through the alleyway and down the incline. That and all the noise. In particular, sporadic yells of a distressed girl.

A hollowed-out futon sat near the pit, frames of flat tires scattered around it. Crushed cans of beer littered the grass, sprinkled with cigarette butts. An old Volkswagen Rabbit, blanketed in rust and moss from the overhang of trees, was propped up on cinder blocks. The windshield was bashed in, leaving jagged shards that lingered, sticking out from the frame.

Elena was a silly little small town southern belle. It never would have occurred to her how dangerous it was to be walking around out there alone. She knew of the world, yes. She wasn't a moron. But that sort of circumstance just didn't click with her, because it had only been trouble that others had come across, not her. That sort of danger wasn't _real_ to her. Not yet. All that occurred to her was that, whatever was going on down there, someone sounded like they weren't enjoying it. She couldn't just walk past, not without checking it out. Otherwise, it would have plagued her, wondering what had been going on and whether she could've done something about it.

So down she went, empty-handed and unprepared, like the little fool she'd been.

Not that she was so naïve as to not realize she was in deep trouble the second she stepped on a twig halfway down. See, it cracked and promptly drew five scruffy faces her direction, distracting them all from the ruffled — and overtly gothic — girl they had been hassling.

Elena felt her mouth go dry. The lascivious upturns to the mouths of the gathered men sent a sinking feeling through her the second their eyes zeroed in on her presence. But it was too late to turn and run. Running would only make her prey. Would only incite them. Plus, she couldn't exactly skip out on that girl down there, who looked somewhere between bristled and frightened, a bit more than harried, but definitely apprehensive. Not in good conscience, anyway.

So what was she to do?

Saunter the rest of the way into the clearing and greet them openly. Then hope for an opportunity to slip away before they rose frenetic enough to swarm her. That was what she'd do. And exactly what she did.

Good Plan in her opinion. But it didn't quite work out so smoothly.

"You brought a friend?" one of them asked, jousting smarmily at Gothic Girl, making her scowl with a ferocity that would have backed Elena down. The grungy man that had his arm hooked around her corseted waist, however, was obviously not as perceptive as Elena.

"She's Walt's newbie," Gothic Girl told them, her voice dripping with disdain. It was directed with her grimacing expression at the five men who had her enveloped.

That was why she was familiar to Elena, though. She'd seen the gothic chick loitering inside the restaurant earlier, one of Walt's resident waitresses.

Gothic Girl darted a pointed look at Elena before she said, "We're walking home together. Y'know, safety in numbers and all that shit, Joey. Wouldn't want some scumbag like you thinking he could have a some fun with her just 'cause she's new in town. Girl might get the impression we're an unfriendly bunch round here."

One to Joey's right in khaki army fatigues tipped his head toward Elena to give a lewd look. "Can't have her thinking we're unfriendly. Long as she's here, might as well stay awhile."

"Yeah," another added, resting his elbow on the other's shoulder. "Can't let her disappear before we acquaint ourselves. Have a seat, precious."

"No," hostile Gothic Girl snapped. "We got better shit to do than hang around here with you lousy lowlifes all night." She jerked out from under Joey's arm then quickly started for the other side of the clearing. "Come on, Ballerina. We're outta here."

"I don't think so, Carmen." Joey cut across the fire pit to intercept her, sliding into her path before she could reach an anxious Elena. "I'm getting sick of that mouth of yours." His eyes flicked over her shoulder, connecting with Army Fatigues. "Maybe I oughta just tape it up. Save us all a lot of grievance."

Carmen jutted out her chin. "You just try it, you good-for-nothing pig."

When the man's hand cut across her cheekbone in a resounding _thwack_, Elena's trepidation was all but forgotten. She found herself moving toward them, unsure of what she was intent on, even as angular Gothic Girl spat the resultant blood into the man's face, enraging him.

It was a stuttering second after that when all hell broke loose.

The clearing erupted into a brief but frenzied riot as Elena darted between them, trying for Gothic Girl's arm, as the other screamed, cringing in on herself when Joey lunged, getting a good handful of her raven hair in his grip and giving it a brutal yank that wrenched her neck backward at an unnatural angle, while the others rushed forward, all of them coming for Elena.

Before any could clash, flame of the fire roared upward into the night sky, catching the tips of nearby weeds and setting them aflame. The expulsion of wind that rushed outward from it sent the cluster of people flying.

Elena ducked, shielding her head with her arms as she landed in the dirt, long golden curls splaying around her like a ruined halo. Someone fell heavily on top of her, kicking all the air from her lungs, but that oppressive weight was gone a second later.

Opening her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of Gothic Girl, sprawled haphazardly in the dirt near her, gone limp as blood trickled from the base of her skull, matting her hair, staining the dirt beneath them. Emerald eyes rolled up to the splintered plank of wood from the futon which loomed above them, dripping blood onto the girl's ghosted face. Nausea rippled through her. Before it could take over, yelling filtered in through the sharp haze. She flipped herself over, pushing upright, as she tried to make sense of what was going on around her.

Wind whipped at the tall weeds, rousing the fire into fiercer strength.

Joey lay at her feet, his eyes open and frozen because of the blood that gushed past a mess of meat and tendon and flesh at his throat, pooling into the sandy earth below.

The others scattered.

Army Fatigues sprinted for the pathway that led up to the street. Running for his life. One went to follow him, only to drop limply to his knees when a blurred shadow ripped past. The sickening crunch of his neck twisting reverberated through the clearing, stinging her ears.

Unable to watch the rest, she shook herself from her shock and pivoted onto hands and knees, scrabbling toward the angry fire pit. By the time her hand wrapped around a safe end of one of the wooden planks strewn through the fire, sounds of Army's quick but gory death was flooding her ears. His final gargle of protest and the wet splatter of blood hitting grass came only one quarter of a second before the heavy thud of his body collapsing.

Elena found herself frantically reluctant to turn around.

But this wasn't a movie. She couldn't just close her eyes and make it go away. So she yanked the plank from the fire and swung around, holding the flickering torch in front of her as she rose, trembling terribly. Amidst a field of spreading flame and fallen carnage, there he stood. Like some stunning ... monster.

He was porcelain and dark, flawless flesh, unruly fringes of ebony hair falling across his brow. He wore a suit jacket with fitting waistcoat and dark clothes beneath, and stood tall and straight, unbothered by the massacre around him, untouched by the growing fire, which licked heat and smoke as thick as the clouds across the clearing, closing them in. But it was his face that took her breath away. It closed up her throat with frozen fear and compressed her heart. Those eyes were pure obsidian in a way she'd never seen. Molten quicksilver filled his irises. And where there should have been whites was blood-shaded blackness, dripping over thick lashes, glowing. Veins around his eyes ran red with it as well, surfacing beneath ashen skin like wild wire, monstrously varicose. His lips were coated in blood, excess smears of it, which dripped down his chin, while stained tips of sharpened canines protruded.

When he turned and their stares locked, Elena choked back a scream. But the feral quality of him began to ebb at the connection, as if her attention brought him rationality. Eyes widened and jaw slackened, fingers clenched painfully around the wooden plank, she started edging sideways, fumbling over dead bodies and discarded junk, unable to deviate her focus from the inhuman one who watched her. She made it to Carmen and put herself between the fallen girl and the monster, holding the wavering torch in his direction, as if it were some impressive threat when they were being swallowed alive by the fire that burned up the wheat.

"You're hurt," he told her in an eerily absent voice. The atrocity of his eyes was beginning to recede now, easing the strain on her heart by increments.

Elena brought a free hand up to her collarbone, clutching the curve of it, where the intense sting rippling through her arm radiated from. Sure enough, her shaky fingertips came away sticky with warm syrup. But when she chanced a quick glance, he took a step forward and she panicked. "Stay back!" she demanded through gritted teeth, raising the torch a little higher in front of her. "Stay away!"

The monster let his clearing eyes flicker down to the end of the plank, lifting a dark eyebrow at her, possibly either amused or irritated. "If that's how it's going to be."

One second later, a sudden clash of thunder resounded through the sky, popping sharply in her eardrums. Following it unnaturally close was the sharp crackle of a lightning strike that snaked down and crashed into the fire pit. The resultant implosion was stupefying.

Blinded and knocked off her feet, she lost her grip on the torch, too busy catching herself in a puddle of sticky carnage as her hip bashed against the ground, making her cry out.

Rainfall broke from the inky clouds, quick and fierce, pounding down in sleets of water that bathed her skin with needles, extinguishing the outreaching fire before it could go wild.

When she leapt up, uncovering herself from the shield of her arms, she found herself alone in the smothered clearing. He was gone. And she was left alone with this mess that would forever haunt her every time she closed her eyes at night.

Drenched, shaking, and delving into a deep sort of shock, she had crouched by the limp girl and floundered for a pulse. No pulse. No heartbeat. No breath. Dead.

Looking around, she accepted the bewildering fact that they were all, indeed, dead. And she struggled to find something to do, something that could be done, but there was nothing. And she couldn't breathe. Not with the stench of burnt flesh and smoke suffocating her.

As the relentless rain poured down, washing away the carnage, she came to her feet and ran. She ran and she refused to look back.

Shaking from her reverie, Elena heaved a sigh and set her book on the floor, stretching out across the sofa. She curled up onto her side and let her eyes flutter shut. She was so exhausted. She wouldn't be able to keep awake for much longer, no matter how famished she still was.

That next morning, she'd just barely summoned the courage to unbolt her door. But with buckling determination, she'd made it in time for her first shift at Walt's. Which she regretted when she'd found the place crawling with cops. The coroner's crew were only just lugging away the bodies, zipped up in rubber bags on stretchers. She probably spent that whole day looking like a jonesing tweeker. Other than the officer that was giving all the waitresses a standard interview, no one approached. She spent her lunch break and the last of her reserves on her taser.

Days went by and talk of the bloodbath died down. As if, though sensational, things like that weren't so far out of the ordinary around here that they upset the routine of day to day life for very long at all.

Elena understood now what that said about this city. But back then, she had yet to attune to the rhythm of it. This city lived and breathed just as every creature residing within it. It went to a different beat than the rest of the state. And the longer she lived here, the closer she came to catching up with that tempo.

On this night, she fell asleep to wicked dreams, each fueled both by staggering horror and devouring desire. If her stranger ever came, she was never aware of his presence. Until morning, that is, when her alarm went off and she found a basket of breakfast pastries and fruit waiting for her on the fire escape.

* * *

**TBC**


	3. Second

**Second**

* * *

In a way, running was like sex. Pushing her body to the max and then winding down to the refreshing ache of spent muscles and the high of released endorphins. She even got messy for it.

Coming home, her tracksuit was drenched with sweat. Her locks had been done up tightly, but wisps of gold still pasted to her face and neck, making her itch. Inside, she bolted the door, regardless of the early morning twilight sky outside, and wiggled out of her Nikes and socks, leaving them by the door as she wandered deeper into the apartment, stripping off dirty clothes as she went along.

The shower was icy, because she had no patience to wait, so she had to deal with the shock of sudden transition twice, once getting in, once getting out after the water had warmed her temp. She wrapped a towel around her body and scrunched another through her wet curls while she doubled back, collecting her discarded attire for the hamper.

It wasn't until she came back a second time to put her sneakers away that she saw the letter.

It was a simple ivory envelope, only no postage stamp and no address. Hooking the towel in her hand over her shoulder, Elena bent down and snatched it up, wary but curious. It had been slipped under the door while she was out, must have been, because it hadn't been there when she'd woken up this morning.

As she broke the seal and scrounged out the letter, she wandered absently into the kitchen, hopping blindly onto a Formica countertop as she unfolded it. The paper was thick, high quality, more like parchment than printing paper, not something she saw often. And worn softly as if someone had spent a lot of time pressing pen to the surface.

Up at the very top corner of the page, a header was tattooed on with crimson-shaded wax. Nothing she'd ever seen before. The calligraphy was extravagant and eloquent, so much so that she had to squint to decipher the text. This was ridiculous, she was thinking, until she actually began reading, and her heart started thumping harder, breaths coming shorter, pulse quickening with the acrid taste of fear that threatened to choke her.

* * *

The day passed, ushering in the dusk of night, and when darkness had completely descended, swallowing the apartment whole, Elena was still sitting on the floor inside her bedroom closet, back pressed to the far wall, knees drawn against her chest. Her eyes stared into the shadows, seeing nothing, lost in thought.

That was how he found her — her stranger.

"Elena?" he called from the fire escape, his low voice like velvet against the inside of her skin. "Tell me what's wrong, Lena. Why are you hiding?"

"Go away," she whispered, knowing he'd hear her as easily as if she'd screamed.

"Be nice," he chided, a touch of playful mockery laced through his tone, "I come bearing gifts."

"I'm not sure how many more of your gifts I'll survive," she muttered under her breath, clambering to her feet and making her way out of the bedroom. When she was in line of sight of the fire escape, she swiped the crumpled letter out of her pocket and waved it in the air at him. "What the hell is this about? You spend all of this time trying to convince me to trust you then you freak me out with this demented garbage."

The dark brow of her stranger creased, his vivid onyx eyes fixed on the paper in her hand. With a voice deceptively gentle, he drawled, "I suggest a trade, my dear. You hand that over. And I'll give you this." To tempt her, he held up a sealed platter, displaying an array of sliced fruits and vegetables with a center full of separated fudge sauce, whipped cream, and ranch dressing, while his gaze never wavered from the letter.

Just a glimpse and Elena was nearly distracted from her angry terror. She was starved and the platter he held mouthwatering. It drew her several steps closer before she realized she was even moving. But when she did realize, she lurched to a halt, snapping out of it.

"Stand back," she demanded, moving warily toward the window.

Raising his brow but otherwise holding back commentary, her stranger did as she insisted, backing away until he was leant lazily against the wrought-iron railing. Quickly, very carefully, she hoisted the pane of glass up from the sill, balanced the letter there, halfway out, halfway in, before she leapt backward, out of reach.

Chuckling to himself at her antics, her stranger came forward, sliding the platter through the open gap of the window and snatching up the waiting letter. As he milled across the fire escape, scanning the page with attentive eyes, Elena slanted, grabbed the platter past the threshold.

Watching him, she lowered herself to the floor and sat cross-legged there, munching on a few slices of apples, swirling them in fudge and cream. She could tell the moment he reached the end.

Signed: _Your Faithful Devotee_

A perfect last word for the sickness that soaked the words before it, she thought. But from the carefully expressionless look on his face, all the doubt she'd held over this seeped away.

"So you weren't the one that left me that?" More a confirmation than an actual question.

The stranger glanced up at her with a look of distaste, genuinely affronted. "I resent the mere suggestion of it. As if I would ever write a love letter so clichéd." He scoffed, shredding the letter with succinct jerks of his long-fingered hands, and said, "No, my lovely. It seems you have snared yourself a stalker. And it's not me. How is that for irony?"

"You call that a love letter?" She blanched, nauseous all over again, a strip of sweet red pepper poised at her lips, all but forgotten. "The things he describes. His promises ..." Her gorge rose. "I'm going to be sick."

Elena leapt to her feet, made a mad dash to the bathroom, barely making it in time to hunch over the porcelain basin as the contents of her stomach heaved up her throat, spilling out.

_For when we will be together. Precious Elena. The taste of your heart's meat. Leaving bodies on your doorstep. Love notes on your headstone. Forever. Belong to me. Never lose me. Nowhere to run. No one to interfere. Once our time arrives, you will know. Until then ...  
_

It went on and on, words strung together to make meaning, scrolling through her mind in jagged flickers that only made her stomach heave again, an intense mixture of fear and revulsion, of horrorstruck disbelief.

There was something eerily familiar about the disjointed flow of his courting.

When she could at last stand on shaky legs, she washed her mouth out, splashed cold water on her face, and downed three tablets of aspirin. By the time she reemerged, her stranger was propped on the stairs of the fire escape, leaning on an elbow, a mildly amused façade written into his beautiful features. She ambled back to her spot in front of the window and sunk to the floor, letting out a deep sigh.

"No need to get so worked up over something like this," he told her, sounding somehow both irritated and bored all at once. "Those sorts of degenerates are usually all talk. He was probably on a street corner, spotted you walking home one day, and grew himself a little crush. If he was going to do more than spam you with vaguely unsettling poems, amateurish at best, he wouldn't have bothered with this letter."

"You sound certain."

"I am."

"And it's that simple?" she asked, looking dubious. He couldn't possibly be so naïve. He was only trying to soothe her. "I'm just supposed to let it go? Pretend that there isn't some sicko freak out there planning to carve out my heart and dine on it?"

The stranger gave her a long serious look. "Yes."

Elena gazed wonderingly into his crystalline eyes. Dread continued to simmer. But there was something about the way of him, about the way his eyes pierced into her, and the melodic sound of his voice. She couldn't help but give in. So she let out a weary breath and shrugged shoulders, hands going up in there air in a helpless sort of gesture. "Okay then."

"Now," he began in a lighter tone, rubbing his hands together. "Onto other things."

"Oh?"

"Those treats have ulterior motives."

"Figures," she drawled, rolling her eyes and dipping the tip of a ripe red strawberry into the whipped cream. "What is it you want?"

"To know more," he answered simply, resting his arms over his torso. "I have a question and you must answer this one."

Elena could already feel her wariness returning. "Go on."

"Why did you leave home?"

She stiffened. "We went over this."

"Where is harm in answering a few personal questions?" he countered, head canting at her.

Shaken but stubborn, she narrowed her eyes, secured an impassive expression. Golden locks tumbled around her shoulders. Old regrets, aches and pains, all stabbed at the girl for supremacy. Her hands trembled as the new ominous monster haunting her lingered in the background of their easy converse. "I'll make you a deal—"

He held up a challenging index finger. "Ah, but we are already in the midst of an accord, if you will recall? The platter for an answer."

"That's not good enough," she argued, pivoting onto her knees to rest on exhausted haunches. Her muscles were strained. Her nerves were dulled. Her overall sense of well-being felt battered. But she played along. Because he always knew how to keep her distracted. "If you want me to get into all that, you'll have to answer one of _my_ questions."

He kinked a dark brow at that. "You will answer if you can ask me one also?"

She held up a finger of her own. "But you have to answer — and honestly."

He mulled over that for a moment before giving her a succinct nod. "It's a deal."

Sucking in a decisive breath, shoulders braced, she busied herself picking at her platter, said, "Well, go on then."

Eyeing her closely, he propped himself against a rail of the terrace once more, crossing ankles, lacing long fingers where they rested lazily at his abdomen. "Why is it you ran away from home?"

Startled, she flinched a bit in surprise. All this time, he never asked about why she was here. She kind of assumed he didn't care or already knew. And she had been grateful for the reprieve. Now that was all shot to hell. Dropping a half-eaten celery stick into the ranch, she heaved a huff of unhappiness, of resentment, and drew her legs tighter into herself. "Simple. I didn't feel safe in my own home anymore."

"Why is that?"

"I just couldn't trust my father anymore." She wanted to leave it at that, her voice wavering from its brusque unemotional tone, but seeing his darkening expression urged her to elaborate, shaking her head in dismissal of whatever he was imagining. "Not like that. He never laid a hand on me. But I had no idea what was going on inside his head. I couldn't say anymore if he was still the man I'd always thought he was or if that man was gone."

"What do you mean?"

"A few days before my mother's murder, I heard her on the phone with my Aunt Jenna. I knew she was having an affair. I didn't judge her for it. I mean, whether she'd fallen out of love or was just bored with her life, it wasn't my business. She was a wonderful person. We all have our flaws. I just couldn't bring myself to think badly of her. So I kept my mouth shut. But then she died." The girl paused, and her next breath was shakier than before, but her voice came out fairly level as she pressed on. "They never caught the guy that did it, you know. Cops of backwoods Mystic Falls had no freaking clue. And I kept finding myself watching my father, wondering these crazy things, these horrible things to consider about your dad. _Was it him? Or was it her lover? _Or was it some psycho stranger off the street who decided to climb through a random window and leave my mom butchered for the hell of it? The sheriff thought it was just a drifter. She wasn't suspicious of Dad or anyone in town. Even after I told her about the affair. What really messed me up was not being able to believe one way or the other. Do you have any idea what it's like to live in the same house with somebody, someone you love, and think they may have killed your mother?"

"No."

The easy retort jarred her from her reverie, tore her eyes from the sucking void, lured her gaze up to settle on his face, aristocratic features smooth but attentive. Softly, she admitted, "I just couldn't stay in that house one more night."

"Does your—"

"I don't wanna talk about it," she announced, cutting off his quiet question, "and the deal was only one question, which I have now answered, so it's your turn."

"Alright." He dipped his chin in acquiescence. "What do you want to know?"

"Where do you come from?" was her immediate return.

In deadpan, he answered, "Transylvania."

Elena arched her brow, unimpressed, drawling dryly, "Hilarious."

Serious mask breaking with a playful grin, he insisted, "No, really. I was born there. Although, I grew up in a little village on the coast of Tulcea, which is a few hundred miles eastward."

"Grew up there?" she echoed, swirling a baby carrot into fudge amidst her distraction. "So you were actually ..."

"Human once?" he intuited, and gave her an oddly amused smile for it. "Of course."

"How did you—"

Smile becoming a smirk, voice rich, he interrupted, "Nah-uh. Only one question. Remember?"

"Oh, fine, fine. Anyway, I didn't really wanna know."

"Sure you didn't."

"Shut up," she griped, biting off the tip of her carrot, only to grimace and spit it out, snapping, "What the hell?"

"Don't like chocolate?" he teased, earning a brief glare from narrowed emerald eyes.

Rising onto her feet to toss the remnants away, she said, "Not on my carrots." Then, sliding up onto a counter in the kitchenette, setting the platter side, she told him, "Next time, you should bring lasagna. I miss Italian food dearly. Ooh, and some DVDs. I miss watching movies too."

"You don't have a television," he pointed out, humor glinting in his eyes as he watched her.

Elena shrugged. "I can watch them on my laptop."

"I would," he began, drawing out the words to taunt her, sidling closer to the glass, "But I feel it would be mighty uncomfortable trying to watch a miniscule screen like that from out here."

That got her eyes rolling. "And here we go again."

"Why won't you let me in?"

"Why are you so intent on _coming_ in?" she challenged, hopping down from the counter to plant her hands on her hips, eyebrows high, head tipped to the side.

Stranger spread his arms in demonstration. "These accommodations aren't exactly five-star."

"Poor baby," she mocked, and then dropped the saccharine voice to add, "You can deal."

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"I don't know that."

"You should."

"No, I shouldn't. Don't you remember how we met?" Unaware of her motions, she was drawn closer to him, stopping with a jolt of alarm only once she'd made it to the windowsill. "You killed those people. You slaughtered them. Why would I ever let you in?"

"They were going to hurt you." The return was said so simply, as if he couldn't comprehend her taking issue with such a fact, that it brought her up short for a second. "What would you have had me do?"

"Not _that_." Exhaling a shudder of a sigh, she let her itching fingertips settle against the surface of the glass between them, cool to the touch and so very dangerously fragile as her last defense. "Do you know I spent the rest of that night curled up in the bathtub?"

The intent in his icy onyx eyes never strayed. But the cast of his dark features revealed regret. "I'm sorry for frightening you, Lena. But you _are_ safe with me."

A wistful twist to her lips preceded her sarcastic quip. "I'm sure you say that to all the girls."

Countenance intensifying suddenly, her stranger pressed close to the glass, hands buried in his trouser pockets, head canted slightly, expression calculatedly enticing. "Invite me in."

There it was. The trigger which awakened her resolve. Going from melted to stern once again, Elena pulled herself away from the window, away from him and his insidious draw. She dropped back onto the floor before she fell backwards, legs crossed Indian style, lying down. With her gaze fixed on the ceiling above, she said, "It won't happen."

He disagreed, "It will. Eventually."

Perhaps because his confident assurance rang like truth inside of her, she found herself flinging upright mere moments from stretching out. Palms biting into the pane, she met his eyes again as she slammed the window shut, saying softly but sternly, "Goodnight." And then under her breath, "Mister Mysterious."

* * *

**TBC**


	4. Third

**Third**

* * *

Working the graveyard shift never got any better than it began. And the severe anxiety at being without the security of her threshold during nightfall only made it that much worse for Elena. She had tried so desperately to get out of it, but Walt threatened to fire her if she didn't show up, so here she was. And at least she was able to come in before sunset, and wouldn't be leaving until the morning shift took over, so she wouldn't be wandering the streets in darkness.

She spent the majority of time glancing furtively out the diner's front wall of shuttered windows, waiting with bated breath for whatever horror would show itself, but nothing except pedestrians ever jingled the entrance bell. Each were all scraggly homeless, or nomadic long-distance drivers, or insomniac rogues. None were any with enough riotous energy during the tedious night to stir much trouble. They dropped into booths or at the main bar to cradle steaming mugs of coffee or scarf down a plate of syrup-drenched pancakes, never saying more than a gruff word or two to her or each other. In fact, as the hours wore on, such a desolate mood started to grow on the girl in a strangely comforting way. The monotony soothed her frayed nerves.

A normal sort of waitress weariness replaced her abnormal fear.

Until her cell rang and an ominous shiver of dread slivered through her. Not many people had her number. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good news.

Tucking her novel into the pocket of her apron, she set Lucinda aside and slipped off her stool for the backroom to answer. When she flipped it open, _Jeremy _was written across the tiny screen. Dread expounded into pained resignation as she brought the phone to her ear. "Elena here."

"Hey, cuz. Good to hear your voice. It's been awhile."

"Yeah," she said, voice sounding hollow and far off, "I know it has."

"How have you been?"

"Jer," she began, shaking free of the hazy stupor hearing a familiar voice from home had brought on, using a hard tone, "I'm kind of busy right now. Just get to the point."

"Right. Have it your way." The friendly humor of his inflections sharpened with his annoyance and she felt a pang of remorse for being mean to by far the most sensitive of her younger cousins. And her favorite. They had always been close. But since leaving home, starting a new barren life here in the city after her mother's death, she found there was no such thing as that for her anymore.

Forcing patience, she softened, sounding as apologetic as she could manage as she added, "Sorry. I'm just tired. And it's the middle of the night, so something must be wrong."

"Depends on your definition of wrong."

"Jeremy."

"Okay, well, your dad has been using my dad and his connections to search for you for months without any luck. But yesterday they got a ping. Uncle John is on his way there as we speak."

Panic lodged her heart up into her throat. Pressure behind her eyes began to throb. "When?"

"He left earlier today. On a plane. I'd have called with the heads up sooner but it took me awhile to find where I'd hid your number."

Absently, rubbing at the pain in her forehead, she wondered, "How did you even get it?"

"Bonnie gave it to me."

"Of course she did," Elena drawled, chiding herself for reaching out to her once best friend. Teenagers could not keep these kinds of serious secrets. "Thanks for letting me know, honey."

After snapping the cell shut, she pulled it from her ear and just stood for a lasting moment, staring down at it, as if this blasted device was to blame. Weren't normal teenagers supposed to worship their cell phones? Why did she have to resent hers? When would she be able to just _be_? Instead of constantly looking over her shoulder. Terrified of something she didn't even know. Something she couldn't fully understand. On top of everything else, she had to contend now with her past catching up with her. And so soon.

The girl didn't want to be afraid of her own father. There had been a time, not too long ago, when she loved him more than anything. He was her favorite. But the death of her mother had changed him. He acted differently, suspiciously, and every time he looked her way she could see all the secrets he was keeping from her, all the lies he told. If it wasn't that he'd killed her mother, what was he hiding? Why had he pushed her away? Treated her like he had never dared before? Like she was a betrayer, or an insidious interloper in her own home, as if she no longer belonged there with her family. If it wasn't about what he'd done, what had _she_ done?

Forgetting herself, Elena shoved her cell into her jacket pocket and ripped her apron off as she stomped back into the front of the diner. There were only two patrons inside at the moment, an old trucker hunched at the counter with a bowl of soup and grilled cheese, reeking of gasoline and stale smoke, and a blond man in the corner, listening to an iPod. Despite the fact the diner was a 24/7 place, and she would most certainly be fired, she grabbed the keys off a kitchen hook and skirted around the counter to usher her customers out.

"Sorry, folks. We're closing up early. You gotta go."

The old trucker allowed himself to be kicked out with no more than disgruntled grumblings, but the college boy, who looked like a California surfer and sounded like a cheeky Brit, ignored her without so much as blinking. Regardless of the earbuds, she wasn't fooled. He could hear her. The brush off spiked irritation through her and pushed her panic down to a simmer.

Coming up to his booth, she tapped him on a leather-clad shoulder, getting him to turn from his gazing out the window. When he tugged his earbuds, she drawled nastily, "Must be something fascinating out there."

"Just thinking."

"Well, do it somewhere else."

A sparkle of mischief lit his jade green eyes as luscious lips quirked into a charming smirk. Raising his mug of coffee, he countered, "Can I get a refill first?"

"No."

The resultant cant of his head was wolfish in a way that got under her skin. "Please."

For a tense moment, Elena stood frozen, their gazes locked in a measuring battle of wills. But the smile did her in. She always did have a weakness for the roguish sort. "Fine. One refill."

"Thank you."

As she came back with the pot, she insisted, "Then you're gone. You hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Once the mug was brimmed, she started to twirl, but a warm grasp circled her wrist before she could completely pull away. Warily alert, she glanced back at the boy, stiffening at the look in his eyes. "Did I say you could touch me?"

"Sit with me," he demanded, still so very charming.

But the girl wasn't charmed anymore. She knew that look. "Let go of me."

"Oh, come now, sweetheart. There is nobody left to wait on. It's just the two of us."

"Exactly why I want you to get your hand off me," she returned, voice a sudden cutting sound. When she tugged at his hold, however, he merely slid to his feet, bringing their bodies too close, fingers still too tight around her wrist. Just as she was contemplating smashing the coffeepot upside his arrogant head, he urged her hand slack, letting it drop onto the tabletop with a rattle of china. Standing just a hairsbreadth from flush, she could feel the heat pouring off of him and felt a surge of want rise in her. Breath hitched, she watched his gaze drop to her mouth and couldn't stop her tongue from darting out to wet her parted lips. Sounding shakier, she tried again, "Let me go."

The curve of his smile was incongruously victorious. It made her stomach flip. His other arm snaked around her waist, keeping her backward steps from spacing them, when he darted down, capturing her mouth in a sharp and stinging kiss.

Shock reverberated through the girl. Breaking free of his bruising fingers, she smacked palms to his chest, shoving him off balance. As he stumbled back a step, she gasped in a jagged breath, stunning emerald gaze going from wide-eyed indignation to hooded lust within mere heartbeats. He grabbed for her again, and she didn't _give in_, she succumbed to a capsizing wave of emotion. An abrupt and unexpected tide turned inside of her. As if possessed, feeling lightheaded and dizzy with desire — no, _hunger _— she fisted delicate fingers in his lapels, swung around until the backs of his thighs knocked into a stool at the counter and he collapsed, sending canisters skidding over the edge onto the matted floor beyond.

This time, when their mouths met, a spark of live electricity zinged through her entire being. She shuddered, fingers tightening in his jacket, and climbed on top of him to straddle jutted hips. Lost amidst a delirious frenzy, she registered a sucking sort of feeling that awakened, as if she was drawing all of that energy, all of that lust and passion, right out of him, devouring it for herself. Taking more and more. Until there was nothing left. And whatever she was pulling at shifted from hotly heady into coldly repulsive.

Incredible, she thought. Freaking _incredible_. What the hell was happening?

When she broke away, gasping for air, shivering with primitive delight, her fingers went slack, sliding slowly from the smooth leather of his jacket, swaying back a pace or so. It took effort to get her eyes to open, to breathe regularly, because the swirling of sensation inside her was wondrous. But as her vision returned, she was greeted by a horrific sight that shot her high all to hell.

College boy was sprawled where she'd left him, slumped backwards over the countertop, already half fallen off the stool. The way his head hung back and his arms hung down limply sent a thrill of sinking dread through her. As she forced herself closer, body rebelling against her will, she found herself breathless. Though his form rested lifeless, his eyes remained open wide, dulled, a creepy Joker smile frozen stiff on his kissed lips.

A blood-curdling scream rose from her chest with a painful tear but got stuck in her throat before it could be heard in the deafening silence of the empty predawn diner.

Thrusting a hand into her pocket, she curled her fingers around the keys, let the pressure of it imprint into her tender flesh, backpedalling towards the door, because she couldn't tear her eyes from the nightmare visualized before her there. But when her back hit the glass, she jumped in stifled terror, letting the keys drop to the linoleum floor. Thoughtlessly, she flung herself through the main entrance, spinning and sprinting down the dirty sidewalk.

The chilling jingle of the bell echoed in her ears as she ran away.

* * *

Locked within the sanctuary of her rundown apartment, Elena spent hours pacing herself into exhaustion. And then more hours soaking in the bathtub. And even more lying in bed unable to let sleep claim her. Obsessing over what had happened. By the time she made it to sunny noon, she had just about convinced herself she'd dreamed it all up in her own demented head. Anxious, bleary-eyed, breathless, she checked her cell, clutched at it in her pocket, and went out for a walk.

There were no cops circling the diner. No call from Walt. No pounding knocks on the door by uniformed men ready to haul her away.

It was as if nothing happened. As if she hadn't abandoned the diner before the end of her shift and left a corpse for her coworkers to stumble over. Hadn't even bothered to lock up. Oh, she was so totally fired. And then arrested. Could they even imprison someone for kissing a guy to death in this state? God, just thinking it made her doubt her sanity. What if she _had_ imagined it all?

Yes. That was exactly what she'd done. Between her sleep-deprived mind and the panic of finding out her father was on his way, she must have hallucinated the nightmare.

By four, she had talked herself into so much bravery, so much blind assurance, she picked up her cell and dialed into work, asking Walt if she was still off until Tuesday. With a tone so normal it gave her eerie chills, her manager informed her of a change in schedule. She was on Monday. Not a word about skipping out on her graveyard shift, leaving the diner unlocked, undefended, and definitely no mention of a discovered dead body.

When she hung up, Elena allowed herself a brilliant smile, falling back against the front door in a rush of intensive relief. But the reality her little daydream of horrors was distracting her from sunk in then and her smile faded as if it had never bloomed to begin with. Letting her tired knees give out, she slid slowly to the floor and wrapped her arms around her legs, back pressed hard to the solid barrier of protection that was her bolted and chained door.

As a sun died in the orange-tinted sky and a purplish dusk approached, she breathed easier.

The stranger came to her as if called from a distance, appearing outside her window from the fire escape as always, lush locks curling over one side of his brow, hands in his trouser pockets, dark silk shirt hanging nicely off the planes of his chest, projecting an image of casual elegance. Infused into his countenance this evening was amused anticipation.

"Daddy issues?" he quipped, canting his head, somewhere between prodding and mocking.

Elena sighed, fingers still clutched loosely around her cell, and retorted, "You could say that."

Though she could see in his eyes he had planned to sit back and enjoy this, it seemed to her that the numb hollow enveloping her spurred him into action. "Let me in and you won't have to deal with him. Not even for a second."

"Sounds like a deal with a devil," she responded, her voice vacant, even as her will refused. Dread had her in its grasp, squeezing the life out of her, and she couldn't pretend she was okay. She didn't want to see her father. She couldn't handle that. Not now. Not so soon.

What if he dragged her back home? Caged her in that house which felt foreign and invasive. She would break. She knew she would. Fear overwhelmed any lingering doubts she still clung to. Maybe she should have run. Packed her bag and hopped on a bus, moved on from here like she'd moved on from Mystic Falls, before her father had a chance to find her here in her horrifying haven. It was what she wanted to do. But her body wouldn't cooperate. All she could do was sit and wait.

Regardless of her continued rejection, when John Gilbert finally arrived later that night, making lots of noise at the buzzer on the stoop, her stranger coolly intervened.

The fire escape was bolted to the brick of her building in an alleyway on the west side. Around the first corner was the street and the entrance to the apartments. When he disappeared, she knew where he was going. Stirred from her stupor, Elena pushed onto her feet, going to the window to gaze below, heavily reluctant yet urged nonetheless to seek her father's sight. There was nothing to see. Not until her stranger herded him out of the enclosure and onto the deserted sidewalk.

The man was tall but not broad, strong but lean, his hair cropped close to his head shaded fair and bright like a faint beacon in the shadowy street, his golden hue given to his only daughter.

John looked ready for a fight at the unexpected delay. But when he tried to shove himself past her stranger, a hand caught his chest, easily forced him back a step. From above, she watched the two men, watched their gazes lock, and squinted to see her father's flushed expression of rage smooth into something vacuous and wholly unnatural on his features.

Elena was breathless, completely stilled with tension brittle enough to snap, as her stranger sent her father away with no more than a few softly murmured suggestions. The untroubled man who climbed back into his cab and drove off without protest was _not_ John Gilbert. Her father never would have been quelled by words from a stranger, would never have let such a stranger stand in his way of busting in and dragging her out by her hair, no matter what lies were told.

Even through the relief of having avoided such a confrontation, she couldn't feel satisfied with what had occurred. Not entirely. She was too shaken.

When the stranger returned to the fire escape, she ventured only as far as the sofa, her nerves keeping her at bay. "How did you do that?"

"Like this." With no more warning than the lazy words, he showed her exactly what he'd done. Pupils dilating, he captured her in a swaying stare. Though she felt the distinctive pressure of his influence wrap around her, and understood how wrong it was, she couldn't make herself resist. With that intangible touch, he made her _want_ to do anything he asked. She was powerless.

Voice not her own anymore, she said, "What do you want? I'll give you everything."

He chuckled low in his throat, sending a shiver of what could've been either pleasant or awful anticipation through her, and replied, "Nothing just yet, sweetheart."

Before the panic could set in, he broke the connection, pressure of his demanding willpower receding fluidly like the ebb and flow of a river, releasing her from his grasp without ever straying his gaze from her own. Ironically, such a display actually _soothed_ her mood, when it should have only frightened her more. To be faced with such strength — and to know acutely how helpless you are within it — was sort of freeing.

"If you can do _that_, why haven't you just forced me to invite you in yet?" she wanted to know, bewildered by this new discovery. All this time he had spent gaining her trust, getting her used to his company, trying to bribe her for an invitation into her life, and all along he could just _take it_.

Sending her a secretive smirk, her stranger drawled, "That would be cheating. And I, my darling girl, am no cheat."

* * *

As night wore on, waiting for her father to return, despite many assurances from her stranger he would not, Elena fell into a fitful sleep, curled up on her air mattress in the bedroom. A cast of comfortable darkness filled the apartment with an ethereal hushed quality she always enjoyed. Except for when she woke with night terrors, flinging upright, clutching at sweat-soaked covers, as her chest heaved almost frantically for breath and the sensation of suffocating began to fade. Then that comforting dark became something unwanted, something claustrophobic and lonely, where her nightmares were prolonged and inescapable.

This time, when she awoke from her dream, a vivid flashback of sorts, she had her stranger watching over her from just outside, grounding her to reality. This time, unfortunately, reality _was_ her nightmare.

Panting harshly, she grazed numb fingertips across tingling lips, remembered them swollen and hot with a deadly kiss, hunger stirring inside of her with a sudden ferocity that shook her to the core. Not bothering to raise her voice for him, she confessed, "I think I killed someone."

"You did." The easy confidence of his response jolted the girl from her daze. Clambering from her bed, limbs tangled in her bedding, leaving a trail of twisted sheets along the floor in her wake, she padded out to the living room to face him, a demand for truth stark and sharp in her fine features. "Don't worry about it," he told her, shifting strong shoulders with dismissive cool, "I took care of the mess after you left."

Head shaking in unconscious denial, she whispered, "It wasn't a dream. I really killed him."

"Kissed him to death," her stranger put in, humor playing at the corners of his glinting eyes. "To be precise."

"How is that possible?" she asked, dropping absently against the arm of the sofa, knees drawn against her chest, burying her hands in messy golden tresses as her head hung forward, frazzled and frightened.

"It's what you are, Lena." Unlike usual, his use of a family shorthand failed to either grate or comfort her, his puzzling familiarity not nearly enough to distract her now.

"A murderer?"

"A succubus."

"The sex demons?" she snapped, head swinging up, absurd incredulity breaking through her strangled thickness before a harsh startled burst of laughter escaped. "I'm not a demon. Sexual or otherwise. I just ... I didn't mean to."

"I know you didn't," he said soothingly, perching on the wrought-iron rail of the fire escape, arms crossed over his chest, dark eyes piercing under her skin with knowledge she needed. "No one told you what you are. No one prepared you for your awakening."

"My awakening?" she echoed blankly, keeping her head down and her eyes screwed shut.

"If the succubi gene is dominant in you, it usually occurs during puberty. If the gene is latent, sweetheart, like yours was, some kind of trigger is required. A traumatic event in most cases."

"My mother," she guessed, finally picking her head up again.

As the stranger met her hollow gaze, gold curls falling into her heart-shaped face, red lips parted with shock, he pushed from the rail, advanced to the window, where he propped against the casement frame with an indiscernible expression, head canted. "Yes. Your mother's death is what began the process. Last night was only the culmination. Which is why you feel different. Because you _are_ now. You've changed."

"How do you know all of this?" was her next question, hands drifting down her bared legs, accusation lacing her tone as suspicion narrowed her eyes.

The stranger merely offered a faint smile, unfazed by her sudden shift in mood, or the threat building in her expression. "The moment I laid eyes on you, I recognized you for what you are and could see you were blooming. I wanted to keep close by."

"Why?"

"I haven't had much experience with your kind. Succubi are rare to find. I was ... intrigued."

Bypassing all the worrying connotations of his statement, of that slow dark smile, she moved onto what really mattered. "How did I get this?"

"Get it?" he teased, amusement sparking. "It isn't a disease you catch, my dear. It was passed on from one of your parents, like every other genetic marker is, common or unique."

"My mother was not a ... a ... a _succubus_!"

"I know," he returned, as evenly as could be, catching her off guard, "I think your father is."

Elena screwed her face up at him in confusion. "My father?"

"Yes." He paused, letting it sink in, before he went on. "The succubi gene is latent in males, unable to be awakened, but it _can_ be passed on, where it becomes an active gene in females."

"My father's side of the family doesn't have any women. Just me. The rest are by marriage."

"Which is why you are the first to be awakened."

Having finally stopped her head from spinning, Elena registered the fact that this whole idea was insane and latched onto the reassuring normalcy of such a thought. Whirling into defensive, she snapped, "What do you know? You're a bloodsucking creature of the night with no life."

"No need to get so derisive," he chided lightly, still way too pleased for her liking. "Anyway, what in the world makes you think my social life is lacking?"

Giving him a dry look, she replied, "You spend every night outside my window like a stray cat. What am I supposed to think?"

His grin held a sudden wolfish slant. "You are much more interesting than any of my usual plans."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere." And she meant it. Though she did appreciate his attempt at lighthearted exchange, her shell-shocked state was beginning to ebb, and she had to face facts. "If you're telling the truth, and this is real, and I'm not off my rocker in a padded cell somewhere, what happens now?"

"Whatever you want, Elena." His voice dipped low into a seductive lilt. "This means freedom for you. No more rules. Live however you imagine. Learn to control your natural gifts and you can have anything in the world — anything and anyone."

"Sounds great," she deadpanned, still stuck in disbelief.

The stranger let his eyes scroll over her in a slow studying onceover before he spoke again. "What happened at the diner was sloppy. An accident. Once you get the hang of your feeding habits, you won't have to suffer those sorts of overdoses unless you decide to."

"Feeding?" she echoed, startled back to attention, once again bitch-slapped by reality. "I killed that guy!"

"You drained his _chi_ through sexuality. That _is_ what you succubi do. It's what you live off of."

"I live off regular food, like a regular person, because I'm human, not some soul-sucking slut from a bad horror flick!"

"Oh, Lena." He sighed, laughing softly at her rant. "You have no idea what you are capable of. What you are now is powerful. Or at least that is what you could be. If you embrace yourself and learn how to wield what you've been given properly, nothing can truly stand in your way for long. Not even people like me."

And that was the most enticing promise she had ever heard. Even through the sick clutch of fiery fear.

* * *

**TBC**


	5. Fourth

**Fourth**

* * *

After such a hectic last few days, it seemed awfully anticlimactic to spend the next afternoon grocery shopping. But a girl had to eat. Real food. Not horny people. She couldn't care less what her stranger said about it. She was in no way ready to shove her tongue down somebody else and get them dead with a Joker smile. The college boy was an anomaly. A slip-up. A freak-out. It was not going to happen again anytime soon. Instead, she scanned the deserted market for all of her listed necessities.

As she was picking out pasta — real pasta, in fact, rather than ramen noodles for the first time in months, feeling the need to splurge — a middle-aged stocker passed by her with a dolly, and she felt his eyes on her all the way down the aisle. Ignoring unwanted attention wasn't new for a girl like Elena. But it had suddenly taken on a decidedly more unsettling implication.

Shivers ran across her exposed skin like static electricity as she veered her cart away from him, keeping her head turned until she rounded the corner, and rammed into a startling roadblock.

"Hello, Lena."

"Nameless Stalker," she evenly returned, _somehow_, after shaking off shock, gathering her wits. Swiveling her focus, she scanned her surroundings. An almost empty grocery store. A front wall of plate-glass windows, shining in a gray fog of dimmed sunlight, buried behind an ugly overcast of stormy clouds. Though the fluorescent lights overhead were dull, permitting shadows in all edges, it still seemed bright enough to be safe. Except nothing was _safe_ from _his_ kind. Her security blanket coiled, fell to her feet, and she was left in extreme alarm, her world views shifting once again.

"Oh, don't look so queasy. There is no need to blanch." Fingers still furled around the end of her cart, keeping it immobile, her stranger canted his head and flashed a worryingly cooled smile. "I've just stopped by to say hi."

Swallowing thickly, she drew in a hiss of breath, heard her chest rattle with it, pulse jumping. "It's daytime." Hands convulsively clutched at the cart bar before her. "How did you get in here?"

Smile twisting into a more familiar slant of teasing amusement, he quipped, "I have my ways."

Glancing over her shoulder toward the rear of the store, she watched the stocker man roll his leftover supplies out of sight, where a large swinging door led presumably into the backrooms. When her gaze came back to her stranger, he released her cart and stepped from her path with a mocking flourish. Comforted very little by the two check-out girls up front at their registers, she bit down on her wary panic and headed for the next item on her list, stiffening as he followed along beside her.

"What?" she began, forcing her voice into casual tones, "Is there like some underground labyrinth of sewer tunnels down there you use to get around town?"

He gave her a disdainful arch of one brow. "Please. Do I look like someone willing to tromp through sewage?"

In morbid delight, a brief burst of laughter escaped her as she turned into the breads section. "No, I guess not."

"How are you going to cook this?" he wondered, fingering frozen ground beef in her cart when she reached across and tossed in a loaf of cheap white bread. "If I'm not mistaken, you sorely lack basic kitchen appliances, including a single pot or pan."

Bristled, she pushed the cart forward, nearly catching his foot on a wheel. "I'm working on it."

The stranger rolled his eyes. "You wouldn't even have a microwave if it weren't for me."

"Not true. I could have gotten my own. If I felt like it."

"Liar," he chided, grabbing the side of her cart and veering it off course, shooting her a look when she tried to resist. "We need the utensils aisle. You aren't going to be able to do anything with this food without at least a skillet."

Elena dragged her heels but couldn't keep the cart from obeying him and got dragged along because she refused to let go. "That's not in the budget today."

"Screw the budget." Not even pausing in his smooth trek, he snatched items off passing shelves, throwing them into her cart until she was _way_ over the limit of what she could afford. "I keep on trying to tell you. There is no sense in living like a squalor."

Through gritted teeth, she said, "Some of us have to live responsibly if we expect to survive."

Once they reached the rack of pots and pans, selection greatly limited, he cast a wry glance at her list, which he had somehow pickpocketed without her notice. "I do realize that commenting on the measly contents of your basket is atrocious etiquette — but the leading theme here does not appear to be lasting nutrition."

"What are you talking about?" she huffed.

The stranger met her irritated gaze with a risen brow. "You have more chocolate piled in here than anything else, sweetheart."

"No, I do—" Eyes flicking down, she started to count her items, picking out goodies she didn't even remember adding in at first. Before catching her lip between her teeth, she finished, "Oh, right."

Feigned comprehension rippled across his features. "Ah, I see. It must be nearly that time again."

"What time?"

He grinned. Wolfish again. "Of the month."

Scowling, she tried to run over his foot again, barely missed, but earned an aggravating chuckle. Archly, she challenged, "How would you know?"

Impossibly, he only grew even more amused. "Do you really want to know that?"

Pausing, she angled sideways, studying his expression. "I don't think I do." But when he gave her another husky chuckle, his chest vibrating with the sound, and sidled up into her personal space, irritation won out against her burgeoning good mood. "Shouldn't you be fast asleep in your coffin by now or something?"

Catching the end of her cart before she could get away, he reeled her back enough to set a pair of cookware into it. "A red pot for your pasta and skillet for your meat."

Unable to break from his piercing black stare, she reiterated, "I _told you_ I can't afford it today."

"Perhaps you weren't listening to me last night, because I believe I had made the issue clear. You never have to concern yourself with what you can or can't _afford_ anymore, Elena. As it just so happens, you can _afford_ anything in the world."

"You mean I can _rip off_ anything I want by whammying people with slut perfume."

"Pheromones," he corrected, hardly hiding the quick quirk of his lips as he bit down on humor in favor of a quasi serious look of reproach.

Unimpressed, she continued, "I'm really not interested in experimenting right now. I still can't wrap my head around it all. And I definitely can't get over the fact that my _dad_ has demon DNA."

The stranger sighed heavily in exasperation. "I told you before, dear. It is not demonic."

"Whatever. I'm still not up for testing it out. I just want to go home, have a bath, enjoy a bar of toffee and chocolate, and unknot at least a few of my muscles before I have to be at work in time for another awesome graveyard shift."

"Fine," he replied after a beat of consideration, where he stood frozen, watched her walk away. Catching up again, he pulled out his wallet and stuffed a fold of green bills into the front pocket of her low-rider jeans, making her falter. The move was fast, but his touch down her hip so near that sensitive spot beneath the thick barrier of denim was just suggestive enough to not need to be lingering for a strong impact. Voice low and rich on her nerve endings, he said, "Then take this for now."

Without the last defense of her threshold standing between them, no distance at all, it felt even more dangerous to be in his presence, yet bizarrely freeing in regard to her fear. As if she had gone so abruptly from stifled to freefalling. Such a strange transition in their dynamic. It left her slightly breathless with both anticipation and anxiety. Her safety net was gone.

Getting up to the check-out line, which was thankfully empty in waiting, she began piling all her items onto the conveyer belt, trying to ignore the itching ache between her shoulder blades as his attention refused to stray. "Gonna lend a hand or what?" Bent over the basket, she went still when his hands settled lightly on her hips and cool breath ghosted over the nape of her neck.

He spoke into her ear, so soft she barely registered the words. "I'm afraid I must bid you adieu. Things to do and all."

As soon as his touch fled, she whirled around, but he was already gone. No trace of his wake. Swiveling her head again, she searched the abandoned rows of the empty market before focusing on her cashier, a bored redhead with pink acrylic nails and a nose ring, busy smacking her gum. "Did you see where he went?" she asked, desperate in her tension-filled curiosity, but the girl only leveled her with a flat look, wholly disinterested, so she forced herself to shrug it off. "Forget it."

"So, you want cash or charge?" her check-out girl demanded on a sigh somewhere between impatient and indolent when she finished scanning all her items. Elena had to bag it all herself. But she still mustered up a partially polite smile as she dug out the wad of cash her stranger left and handed only half of it over to cover the register's total. Transaction done, her cashier offered some kind of salute in dismissal, a grimace meant to be a friendly smile. "Have a nice day."

"Yeah," she replied without feeling, pushing her cart through sliding glass doors, "You too."

Arms bundled with two paper bags of groceries squashed against her chest, troubled mind busily whirring over a revolving cycle of worries, Elena walked home under a roiling gray sky. And never noticed the ominous figure who followed her path.

* * *

Cleaning the grill had to be by far the _worst_ part of juggling kitchen duty with waiting tables, which she often ended up having to do, especially when her second hand for the graveyard shift called in sick at the last minute and Walt couldn't be bothered to find a replacement. If she hoped to get out of here by dawn, however, she had to take the opportunity of a currently empty diner and get such a dreaded task done now.

Halfway through scrubbing caked and clotted layers of dirty grease from the undercarriage, Walt's landline started ringing on the wall behind her. Only another coworker would be calling at this time of night, so she didn't hurry to drop what she was doing to catch it, finally snatching it off the hook around the sixth ring.

Sleeves rolled up, rubber gloves tossed aside, Elena propped herself on free counter space, bringing the phone up to her ear. "Walt's Waystation. This better be good."

"Yo, Pierce." Though she had been using the alias of her mother's maiden name for months, it still took the girl a second to register and switch gears accordingly. The slurring voice and din in the background didn't help much either. "So sorry I bailed on you tonight."

Ah. _That_ coworker. "What do you want, Sonya?"

Something like a strangled giggle blasted into her ear beneath a surge of raging techno music. "I find myself in a blitzed condition without a ride home. I'd walk, but it's not that kind of hood, and I lost my groupies awhile ago, so I'm deserted."

Trying to keep the bite from her tone, she retorted, "And this is my problem because?"

The other girl hesitated, her poignant silence drowned out by a chorus of drunken shrieks, before she said, "Not so long ago, I woulda called Carmen. But since that's not viable anymore ..."

Guilt rode in on a fresh wave, rudely burying her irritation. Elena heaved a burdened sigh, falling heavily against the wall, fingers twisting in the phone cord, surrendering with a resigned, "Where are you?"

Once she interrogated enough mismatched coherency from her inebriated coworker, hung up with at least a vague idea of where she needed to go, she cleaned up after herself, left the diner all locked up tight, and was on her way. Even if she couldn't believe she was breaking her own rule, venturing out after dark with nothing more than her taser for protection, just to make sure a girl she hardly knew but slightly disliked didn't end up sprawled unconscious in a nasty alleyway with her pants around her ankles and a foggy recollection of trauma.

Yes, no longer the naïve Virginia peach was she.

Downtown, a district of abandoned warehouses took hollowed streets to a whole new level. Though she couldn't afford it, Elena called for a cab, let the taxi steer her to the right building. One blinding spark of exuberant life amidst the vacuum loneliness of the rest of the dark district. She wasn't about to walk _those_ blocks at midnight.

Already informed of where she'd find the party girl without delving into the wild rave within, she started for the west end of the brick, only to swing back around in time to watch her cab bolt. "Great," she huffed, veering towards the back entrance, where a mini party dwindled on a balcony, rickety rusted iron holding up a dozen or so neon-lit dancers.

Fingering her cell in her leather jacket pocket, she wandered the dregs of ravers in search of her errant coworker, but the phone was useless because she didn't have the number on hand. Right about when she was angling on her heel to blow it off, a familiar screech of slurred revelry echoed in her ears from the left. Around a corner, she found her target lazing about in an alley, propped against a foul dumpster, surrounded by a trio of lackluster admirers.

"Sonya!" she called, making her cadence louder and considerably shriller than necessary. Wrapping fingers around the taser in her pocket as she stomped across the distance. "C'mon, doll. It's late and I have to get back to the diner before Walt tans my hide for abandoning my post."

"Oh, Pierce! There you are! I've been waiting for you." Swaying into the nearest broad chest for support, Sonya pointed a black-painted nail at the soiled cement for emphasis. "Right here where I said I'd be. Isn't that right, boys?"

Almost there, Elena slowed her steps, reluctant to get close. "Are these guys hassling you?"

"Who? Them? Oh, no! You all have been wonderful company! Just wonderful." Gesticulating, she stumblingly twirled between the amused trio, slapping fingertips to one's grinning lips when she leaned in too close and lost her balance again. A giddy giggle erupted as they picked her up. "Thank you very much. So sad to go. But my friend needs me. Don't you, Pierce?"

"What are the chances we can find another cab around here?" the blonde worriedly wondered, muttering it under her breath as she dipped to catch a flailing arm around her neck and propped Sonya up on her feet to drag her away. Unfortunately, as she had a feeling they would, Sonya's trio wasn't too keen on letting her go so early on in the entertainment.

One hand snaked around her arm, pulling her back a step, making her lose grip of her cargo, as the other two stepped into their path. Miss Gothic Petite became a boneless heap of long limbs at their feet so Elena could whip out her new best friend. Before they noticed, she pressed her pair of metallic prongs into the tender stomach spot of the guy who held her, charge flipped on. As a million volts of electricity zinged through him, he flung backward, muscles seizing.

A bruise would surely flower around her bicep from the rip of his grasp. Still, she smiled.

"What the hell?!" another exclaimed, swiveling bugged eyes from his convulsing friend to the pretty blonde with a vicious curve to her lips.

Before they could bluster forward in retaliation, she thumbed the trigger again, caught their gazes with the bright zap of shock that arced and crackled between the electrodes in her palm. "Now, I won't ask you to be gentlemen and help me get your playmate here up off the ground. However, I will suggest you collect your buddy and get lost. Before you really piss me off."

After an anxious frozen moment stretched between them all, Sonya's admirers shouldered around the girls and dragged their incapacitated cohort down the alley, angry quiet mutterings of _bitch_ and _skank_ and _shrew_ and the like warming her ears as she gathered octopus Sonya and hauled her out to the street. All the while, her heavy wriggling load whined things like, "That was so _mean_!"

"Shut up," she growled through gritted teeth, jerking the gothic girl free of a cracked sidewalk with more roughness than was strictly necessary. "Do I look like Sober Sister of the sorority to you? Do I?!"

Blinking owlishly up at her when she swung the drunk to a halt on the curb, Sonya slurred, "No. You look sorta sad."

"What?" Pulling back, she tried and failed to restrain her snap. "I'm not sad. I'm mad."

"But you look sad."

"I'm not sad!"

"Okay. Fine. You're mad."

Eyebrows rising high, she added, "Fuming now."

"Sorry," her coworker slurred again, swaying forward until she slumped over the blonde, making her arms come up and latch around her emaciated waist to keep her from dropping again.

With a tired sigh, she shifted the deadweight to her side like hoisting a toddler onto her hip, drawling softly, "Sure you are."

Just as she started to take the step down into the street, her eyes landed on a flash of color in the shroud of shadows of the towering warehouse district. At the opposite curb, a shiny yellow Camaro with black racing stripes gleamed under silver moonlight. But it wasn't so much the car as the lean dark-haired man leant against its hood, arms folded, ankles crossed, a perfect picture of suave patience, which startled her into stillness.

Frozen like a doe in headlights, Elena didn't even notice her grip going slack until Sonya careened into the pavement with an indignant squawk of protest. "Holy crap."

Maybe she dazed out, or perhaps she only blinked, but the next second he pushed from his confident pose, blurred into motion, and suddenly her stranger was just ... _there_. "Having fun, my dear?"

"Not at all," she managed, voice thick with hesitance, uncertainty, and a fresh swell of stress. Unable to move quite yet, she watched him bend and scoop her wasted companion off the street without so much as a flicker of exertion, sparing her a playful wink before he sauntered off for the waiting Camaro. He got halfway there before she snapped to her senses and hurried after him. "Wait a minute! Where do you think you're taking her?"

"Her? Nowhere. You? Home." Popping a side door open, he swung Sonya into the backseat and spun to face the blonde, hip-checking the door shut again. She brought her harried scurry up short narrowly in time to avoid colliding with his chest. "If you'd prefer, we could leave her here."

When her involuntary moment of considering the notion made him grin knowingly, she lifted her chin and shook it off. "I would _not_ prefer."

"If you insist," he quipped, laughter glinting in his molten eyes as he swept her around the hood with a light touch to the small of her back, ushering her into the passenger side before she could think better of riding in cars with monster men.

Everything has felt so surreal lately. She has lost her axis.

Returning to the diner to finish her shift and avoid getting canned failed to occur to her until she was following her stranger up the stairwell of her apartment building, a snoring Sonya draped gracelessly from his arms, and by then it was too late to turn back. Since she had no clue where Gothic Petite lived, and she couldn't leave her on the street, she would have a houseguest.

Once they made it to her door, she fumbled through the locks, keys noisy in her trembling hands, resisting the urge to rotate her body in answer to the pressure of his looming proximity at her back. Even laden with the deadweight of Sonya, she had no doubt how much of a threat he could pose if he desired so. Unlocking seemed to take an eternity crammed into the narrow confines of the hall. But she eventually managed it. Then, shoving the door open wide with a booted foot, she angled to meet his expectant stare.

"You can set her down here." Forcing her gaze to stay steady rather than glance furtively along darkened hallway curves, she drew in a bracing breath, made a gesture for Sonya. "I can handle it from here. Really. She's pretty scrawny. Doesn't weight much at all." Tongue darting, she wet her lips, words flowing breathlessly now. "I don't need your manly muscles to get her in onto the sofa."

The inscrutable mask of his features never gave anything away. But the cool sparkle in dark electric eyes spoke of his typical mocking humor. And, like always, it left her wholly unnerved. "As you wish."

After a moment of silent exchange arced between the two, making her fidget until her spine hit the ridge of the doorframe, her stranger dumped the unconscious girl from his cradled arms, propping her up against the opposite jamb and then stepping back to let Elena catch her when she began to slide for the floor.

Dragging her backwards across the threshold, she felt a muffled giggle of incoherency tickle her shoulder, but the gothic girl never actually stirred from her alcoholic stupor. Once she was on the sofa, secured, Elena returned to the open doorway, keeping her feet from the important line. With her on one side and him on the other, hands buried in his pockets, lips curved, she drawled, "Goodnight, stranger."

It wasn't until the front door was bolted shut and her back was turned that his warm honeyed lilt ghosted over her senses like a palpable caress, invoking delicious shivers. "Sweet dreams, Elena Gilbert."

* * *

**TBC**


	6. Fifth

**Fifth**

* * *

After so many uninterrupted months of living in cultivated isolation, properly withdrawn from the world, it came as a shock to drag her tired backside home from work and find someone waiting for her there, invading her somber space with unwelcome energy.

The sun was only just beginning to set.

"Yo, babe, beautiful, prima donna, I've been cooling my heels for an hour now. What kept ya?" Exuding an impossibly peppy spirit, Miss Gothic Petite swung herself off the edge of a counter in shimmying fashion, short sleek sleets of hair dyed black flying with the motion. Bouncing across to the fridge, she bent inside and said, "Walt been overworking you?"

"How did you get in here?" Elena demanded, going rigid in the open doorway, fingers biting into straps of the leather bag hanging off her shoulder.

Sonya popped upright in feigned surprise, gray eyes wide within a circle of too much kohl, juggling a six-pack of cheap beer and a tub of cookie dough. When she let her goodies drop and scatter across the countertop, she dug out a small case from the pocket of her plaid miniskirt and held it aloft. "Handy lock-pick kit. Never go anywhere without it."

But the fey smile she flashed only earned her an arch look from Elena.

"Um, o-o-o-okay. That's not an impressed expression on your face." And when said expression only got archer, she adopted a bashful approach. "_Hey_. C'mon. Believe it or not, I'm trying to play nice here. Say thanks for helping me out yesterday." And when _that_ didn't totally work, she played her last card. "Plus, I brought pizza!"

Just so easy, distrust became overshadowed by interest. "Pizza? From an actual pizzeria?"

Purple lips curved with smug victory as Sonya crouched in front of the oven. "Bet your ass. Kept it warm and everything." When she pulled the steaming box out and set it on the counter which stood between them, whiffs of melted cheese and marinara sauce filled the apartment. "Tossed crust. Loaded with pepperoni. Since I've got no clue your preferences, I stuck to classics."

Letting her bag slide to the floor, Elena kicked the door shut behind her, forgetting her locks in favor of joining the irksome pixie in the tiny corner kitchenette. Her stomach growled hungrily at the sight. Abruptly, overall impressions of irritation melded into endearment. Perhaps her head was clouded by the bribe. But she didn't care.

"You know you have no coffee table," her uninvited guest promptly pointed out, balancing her paper plate of pizza, can of beer, and spoon of cookie dough as she flounced herself into a sprawl across the blonde's solitary sofa. "What kind of a person has no coffee table? This place is _empty_."

Shoulders shifting in dismissal, Elena carried her own load out to the living room and sunk into a cross-legged position against the wall, setting her drink on the edge of a nearby windowsill. "I get by fine with what I have."

"Get by?" countered Sonya, shooting her a sideways look. "Honey, life isn't about _getting by_. You've been doing it all wrong if that's all you're aiming for."

Hissing as cheese scorched the roof of her mouth, she set her plate aside, wiped greasy fingers on her dirty denim jeans, saying lightly, "Call this an adjustment period."

"If you say so." Eyes roved across the uncluttered space from her place stretched out on her back. "But I got a few friends who could hook you up with the little pleasures in life. Do you even have a stereo? And I don't see a TV. What about bling? How does your closet look? 'Cause I know you ain't been wearing the goods." Halfway through a derisive sweep of her rumpled state, Sonya flung upright. "Ooh! My favorite cuz Johnny just landed a shipment of electronics down at the docks. We should totally get hooked up with an Xbox. It could go in that free corner there. Or this one here."

While her rant rambled on, alarm bells began going off for Elena. "_We_?"

Wide silver eyes projected false innocence. "Or just you. Whatever. It's not _my_ place."

"Because you already have a place. Right? Where you live. Somewhere else."

"Yeah. Of course!"

Funny. The blonde wasn't reassured. But coming up with a nice way to make clear she wasn't in the market for a roommate seemed tricky, so she just shut up, shoveled crust into her mouth. And the pixie with no boundaries picked up the slack to banish silence.

During the visit, her stranger inevitably chose to make an appearance, showing up suddenly on her fire escape, looking as mysteriously charming and quietly superior as always, despite his still unchanged disadvantage, which he might argue was no disadvantage at all, but the blonde most definitely wouldn't. The girls were right in the middle of a fiery debate over the merits of clubbing versus staying safely at home with a good book when he interrupted.

"Hello, lovely ladies."

Though the blonde had caught sight of him in her periphery, heaving a soft resigned sigh, Sonya hadn't noticed the new arrival and jumped like a startled cat at the smooth lilted drawl, falling off the sofa into a tangle of limbs on the floor, barely saving her beer from ruining the carpet. "Holy Hell! Did you know there was a dude out there?!"

"Unfortunately," was what Elena deadpanned.

As she clambered up from her spill, ended up knelt on the arm of the sofa, facing the window, perched like prey prepared to bolt the second intrigue became danger, Sonya adopted a façade of silky examiner, casting wry sidelong glances at her new friend, who remained unmoved. "Who?"

"Am I?" he so helpfully supplied, canting his head. The intent sparkle of molten eyes was for her guest. But the lingering grin of taunting humor was all for Elena. "Just a friendly watcher."

Now she was more than intrigued, she was fascinated. "Ah, such perils of city life." To Elena, she wondered, "Bad breakup?"

"No," she answered sharply, even as he murmured under her, "Not yet."

Curious gaze swinging between the blonde and her stranger, Sonya let out an airy chuckle. "Hey. I'm not judging. Girl's gotta have her vices."

Focusing more intensely on the gothic girl, he ghosted long fingers down the window frame, his touches lingering suggestively at the hinges. "Why don't you invite me inside, Sonya Griffith? We can get to know each other better."

"Don't you dare!" Surging to her feet, Elena shifted attention to her stranger, hands on hips. "That's cheating. I thought you didn't want the easy way out?" When he shrugged, his features conveying only mild satisfaction, she realized he was just getting a rise out of her. Back to Sonya, she said, "He's not my ex. He's my stalker. And he's not getting in here. You hear me?"

Sonya glanced between the two again, blonde friend fuming, smoking hot stranger pleased, and all she could do was flash a playful leer, falling back into a familiar role of the flirt. "Kinky." Slipping down, she sprawled out again, propped on her elbows. "He can stalk me anytime."

The stranger rewarded her lack of qualms with a promising smirk, while Elena spun around from them both, rolling her eyes. Last thing she wanted on her conscience was involving her guest with such a wicked creature, who wouldn't have the same stake in safeguarding Sonya's health as he did hers, most likely. "Go away, would you?"

Fixing her with a pout, Sonya whined, "Does he have to?"

Over her shoulder, she skated her gaze up to lock onto his stare, a wordless exchange passing between the pair. "Yes."

"Have _fun_," he drawled, velvet cadence lilting across her nerves as he pulled from the window, partly mocking, partly encouraging. From the fleeting look he sent her, she knew he'd be back. Rich echoes of his voice lingered in her thoughts long after he was gone.

To her new friend, Elena warned, "Stay away from him. For your own good."

But the pixie was stuck on something else now, released from the distraction of his presence, vacuous expression made puzzled. "How did he know my name?"

Dragging hands through tousled golden curls, she answered, "He's freaky like that."

Perhaps sensing the dangers of exploring such an omen further, Sonya let the subject drop, and a pulsing beat of silence descended between them for the first time. Not that it lasted long. Soon she was up on her knees again, her nervous energy rebounded, chugging the rest of her beer before crushing the can, making an exaggerated shot at the wastebasket by the door. With a little skilled needling, she lured her new friend from her inner abyss and convinced her to hang out.

Later on in the night, after the girls had watched a string of old horror movies on her laptop, one guilty pleasure fluff flick shamelessly thrown in, her stranger returned, as she knew he would, right around the time she was thinking up polite ways to kick her guest home, in fact.

"Told you the screen is too small for me to watch from here."

Jerking her focus from the rolling credits, Elena pushed up from the spread of blankets over her ivory carpet, where she and the pixie had laid out for the entertainment, popping her spoon of cookie dough from her mouth with a sucking smack, jaw working. "Thought I told _you_ to get lost. How long have you been back?"

The stranger leant a hip against her sill, arms folded, his demeanor blithely lazy. "Enough to know your taste in film is seriously subpar."

Sonya rose, dropped her dishes in the sink, and said, "Well, I should get going. Give you two privacy."

"No, don't!" Panicked, she whirled towards the gothic girl, eyes wide. There wasn't any need to see the dark gleam in her stranger's gaze to know letting her venture out would be all sorts of bad. "Uh, actually, I was thinking maybe you should just stay over." Gesturing with her spoon, she said, "It's not safe to be walking out there alone right now. Or, you know, _ever_."

"Tell me about it," her guest quipped, grabbing another beer from the fridge. As she tabbed it, she glanced at the blonde over the rim. "Suppose another night on your couch isn't exactly one of the worst places I could be." Then, with a pointed look at the open bedroom doorway, she added, "But it'd be good to get comfortable."

Elena suppressed an initial surge of aversion at the idea of this girl, an acquaintance at best, getting into her sparse collection of clothing. But it paled in comparison to the sordid scenarios flying around her head of what could happen if she let her go. "Yeah, sure. Find whatever fits."

Gulping down her drink, Sonya sashayed into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her for sure. Distracted, anxious all of a sudden, Elena watched her leave before she rotated to face his stare. The pleasure she'd been feeling lately at their lighthearted exchanges was chased away by the chill reminder of why she'd spent so much time being wary, being _afraid_, and she didn't appreciate it.

"Oh, don't give me that look." Using a familiar cadence of mirthful reproach, he bent his head, crystalline eyes studying her closely as a lock of ebony hair fell over his brow. "I don't need to hurt your little friend. I'm glad you've found one. Besides, I have plenty of my own playmates already."

"That meant to make me feel better?" she countered, voice a rough rasp, testifying to the opposite. "'Cause hints at your more vile predilections only strengthen my resolve to keep you out."

Giving her a sensual smile, dark lashes blinking once, he argued, "What makes you think any of my predilections are _vile_ as you say?"

"Wild guess."

A shiver of something indefinable ran up her spine then. She wrapped her arms around herself to ignore it. But she couldn't escape the palpable pressure of his eyes fixated on her. Or the feel of such pressure rising, pressing in on the barrier of her mind, at the beat of her heart, until it was hard to breathe beneath it. Except she could. Because the sensation seemed to slide off of her after a moment or so, like rainwater splashing over an umbrella, dripping to the ground.

Once it subsided, a small breathless smirk shaped her lips and she took a step towards him, reveling in the look of surprise etched across his aristocratic features. "Did you just try to use your influence on me?" she asked. "Like hypnotism, isn't it?"

The stranger straightened. "Compulsion." Confidence wavered for the first time. "How are you immune?"

"Went to the library. Did a little research." Pausing, she came closer still, high off her triumph, however slight it might have been. Right up before the glass, hardly any space left between them, she murmured provokingly, "Verbena works wonders."

"I'm impressed." And he looked it. But he also looked kind of irked. Though it didn't take long to cover that with a few faceted layers of humor and anticipation. "Most go for garlic."

Despite knowing she shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have issued a challenge, Elena could feel the thrill of it zinging through her bloodstream. Not ready yet to let the dread peg her down, she taunted, "Who knew bloodsucking fiends could be fended off with extract from an ugly flower?"

Startling her, he broke into a delighted grin. "Score one for the succubus. It's about time."

All the excitement of her one-up deflated at his conceited approval. She crossed her arms at her chest, gone sour, and demanded, "What were you trying to get from me?"

"To open the window."

"Why?"

"Open it and see."

Because she knew he couldn't cross the threshold barrier, and she didn't believe he would force an invitation, since he'd had so many chances to do so, she uncrossed her arms, drew in a shaky breath, and flipped the latch. Fingertips biting into pane, she levered the window upward. As soon as it gapped, he pulled a small black box from his pocket and set it on the windowsill. Eyeing him warily, she snatched the box and stepped back. Shoulders hunched, she tore it open, upended it, and a set of keys landed in her palm.

"What is this?"

"What you'll need to use your new wheels."

"Excuse me?" At her arched brow, he tipped his head, gesturing with his chin for the street. Obligingly, she crossed to the front windows and looked out at the curb below, where his Camaro sat parked, yellow and black stark against the thick shadows of the night. "Is this a joke?"

"I never hang onto my cars for very long. I've already got a replacement."

"So?" she huffed, spinning back to him with attitude.

All he gave was one graceful shrug of his strong shoulders. "Might as well take it off my hands."

"No way in hell. You are such an arrogant piece of work. I'm not your mistress. You can't just throw these things on me. If I wanted a car, I'd find a way to get one on my own. But do you have a clue how much insurance costs for someone my age?"

"I'm not trying to be your sugar daddy, dear. Maybe I'm just tired of rushing to your rescue every time you set foot outside. Taxi cabs are expensive. Buses are unreliable. Subway is dangerous. Besides, what with your blooming, you are in too precarious a situation for public transportation."

"I don't care." As he leaned back against the rail of the fire escape, she flung the box at him. One-handed, he snatched it out of midair. "I'm not taking it and you can't make me."

"You took the sofa."

"Want it back?"

"Fine, I give up." Box still palmed, he held his hands up in surrender. "But I've got no use for it, so you deal with my Camaro however you will." Before she could put up more protest, he flung the box right back, disappearing while she glanced down to catch it against her chest.

Despite pink lips tugging up at the edges with a reluctant secret smile, Elena had to curse. _Bastard_.

* * *

**TBC**


	7. Sixth

**Sixth**

* * *

In the morning, her usual waking to the muffled city sounds but a quiet apartment was ruined by the elephant snoring in the living room. Sometime during the night, her bubbly bouncy friend must have snuck out again before crashing down, because empty wine bottles littered the carpet around her feet. When she stumbled sleepily from her bedroom, wrapped in a sheet, tripping over pools of it, she found Sonya face-down in a sofa cushion, bony derrière jutted in the air as her legs curved onto the floor. Despite the precarious position, her deviated septum wasn't muffled at all, and continued to blare rudely through Elena's early rising bliss.

Snarled curls of gold fell across her face as she set the coffeepot brewing.

God, how could such a skin and bones girly hold so much freaking liquor? And what if since she'd slept over twice now, she refused to be gotten rid of? The blonde worried. She knew girls like Sonya back home. Parasites. Once they latched onto someone, it was impossible to escape. But she just couldn't afford a clingy little sister figure in her life. This was bound to be trouble.

After several rejuvenating swallows of hazelnut-flavored caffeine, Elena tugged on her usual yoga pants, her sports bra, corralled her messy hair into a high ponytail, knotted up her sneakers, and headed for the door. The thing she missed most about high school had to be her track team. Maybe it was nostalgia more than any hope for a future return that made her keep up her record. Or maybe it was simply the primal need of her body to feel that oh-so familiar rush of endorphins, of striking speed, pushing herself farther and farther, harder and harder, until it hurt so good.

Because it had been a few days since she'd run, she was revved to hit the pavement this dawn. Except when she unbolted the door, swung it open, she brought herself up short at the threshold. On the other side, a fresh bouquet of snow white roses rested at her feet. Attached looked like another unsigned macabre mockery of a love letter, no doubt. With her houseguest muttering in deep sleep across the room, Elena bent to snatch up her new _gift_, carried it into the kitchenette in a numb stupor, becoming somewhat used to such sick taunts.

While she unwrapped the roses, digging a pair of scissors from a nearby drawer to cut off the rich green stems, careful of the prick of thorns, and filled the crystal vase they came in with water, she couldn't help but wonder. The first letter had thoroughly unnerved her, frightened her even, but she had believed him when she confronted her stranger about it. Now, snipping stems before dropping them into the vase, rose by rose, she began to think twice of his lies. After all, who else could it be? He was the only charming creep she knew in this city. Her only stalker. The monster.

But then she tore the letter open, actually read the words left for her, and knew instinctively it wasn't from her stranger.

Chilled to the bone, Elena lit a match over the sink, set the parchment aflame, and watched it turn to ash. Breathless, she wet her lips, dry swallowed. Trembling wracked her entire body in variously worsening stages. Beginning with her hands. This was bad. So very bad.

* * *

_My sweet temptress,_

_You alone have enticed me across continents with the promise of your dark burgeoning. What an electric pulse you give out to the ether. It thrums through me like a man possessed. Calling me to you from the distance. I recall the first time I laid eyes on you, so young, so fresh, so unaware of the power you hold, and the mere sight of you so lost begged me to wait for you, for your awakening. So you could fulfill your exquisite potential. So I could be by your side as you do, to revel in that delicious charge, to guide you in survival and be guided in your secrets._

_Secrets of a succubus. A darkly golden goddess._

_I do not blame you for ignoring me still, despite my attempts to reach out. In the end, I will show you the merits of such sinful skill and the pleasures of your power. In return, you will show me your gratitude. And your fealty._

_Until we meet ..._

* * *

That very same night, after having chased Sonya away on threat of violence, who wasn't nearly as pixyish when hung-over so horribly, and put in a partial afternoon shift at the diner, Elena felt a new restlessness rise inside her, a strange hunger she was afraid to recognize, with every beat of her anxious heart growing stronger, growing desperate, almost undeniable. The only way to keep herself occupied, to keep from venturing out, was to pin patience on the thought of her stranger, who would surely make an appearance, despite being certain such a diversion might be even more dangerous than allowing this gnawing urge within to overtake her resolve.

Nightfall swallowed the city and was asphyxiating as ever. Darkness was so impenetrable that she felt a shiver run up her spine whenever she glanced out her windows. The streetlamps which lined the sidewalks never came on, which was unusual, but who did she call to take care of it? And at this time of night, who would answer?

But she didn't care. The filled shadows she'd been so frightened of were nothing compared to what lurked inside of _her_ now.

As she found herself fixated on the sight of her fingertips skating across the wavy glass of her living room window, nails bitten to the quick and burgundy polish chipped to pieces, a new sense of unease pricked at her nerves. Emerald eyes cast past the glass, vision glazed, hoods circled with sleep-deprived bruises, staring out at the rusted old fire escape.

Waiting for him to come. Wanting almost as much as dreading.

Would tonight be the night? She could feel the hollow ache in her chest, feel the yearning tingle deep in her bones, distracting her from the more uncomfortable hunger, and with it knew she wouldn't last another night. She wouldn't be able to say _no_ even once more. Not now. Not to her stranger. Not while she struggled to resist this other monster. This one coiling inside of her like a snake in need of release.

The shadows seemed to come alive tonight, as if they knew, as if there were more like him out there now. And there were, she was sure. But how many? Watching. Waiting. Biding their time. Would they leap out for her? Would they hide until the moment she stepped foot past the shield of her threshold? Would they rush to tear her throat open? Or was it only _him_ out there tonight? Only her dangerous stranger?

It was seven months to the day from the death of her mother. Three months since she left home and never looked back. What a great time to succumb to such horrid family inheritance. How could she have thought running from Mystic Falls would set her free? Now she knew better. There was no way to escape the clutches of a father she couldn't trust. No matter where she was, how far she ran, how well she hid, she would be forever trapped by her history. Thanks to _him_ and this awful insidious _hunger_.

One window. She left the window by the fire escape unlocked, opened up just a sliver or so in an obvious invitation. Not the one he wanted. But the only one she could give. And he obliged. Like she knew he would.

"Feeling out of sorts, my dear?"

Elena swung upright off the sofa, golden curls flipping with the swift motion, and rounded to bring their paths even. She noticed the mocking curve of his lips, way his head canted at her, fathomless eyes gleaming in anticipatory satisfaction, but she was too wrapped in herself to care, never mind be irritated or warned off. Touching fingertips to tingling lips, honeysuckle voice pitched low and breathy, she confessed, "I am so hungry."

There was no reaction to the news. But she _felt_ him pleased. "Why haven't you fed?"

The small of her back dug into the ridge of her counter, as far away from him as she could get, because her body was giving her all these foreign signals, all these unbearably vehement desires. "I don't wanna hurt anyone else."

"You know," he began, his smoky cadence gone smooth and sly, "I could help you with that."

_No. No._ Bad idea. Perfectly terrible idea in fact. Moment of weakness. _Don't give in_, her mind demanded of her, at least the smart part of it. But she _needed_ something so badly. Every single cell in her body _yearned_ for whatever it was. _Craved_ it. So she asked, "What do you want?"

"Let me taste you."

_No! No way!_ That would be suicide. She wasn't _that_ desperate. "You're not coming in."

Silence stretched between the pair then. He opted not to bother with jibing and cajoling for it, because he knew he had her. Her own urges would convince her for him and override her senses. It was already happening. The barest movement of his head was plenty enough, dark eyes still fixed and piercing, beckoning her forward.

After painstakingly slow paces across the distance, she stilled again, dropping to her knees before the window. Humor alight in his gaze, he mimicked her wary motion, patiently expectant. His arms came up, hands bracketing either side of the frame above her head, and she forced herself from flinching back. Impulsively, she set a palm on the open sill, sucked in a sharp breath, hammering down a swell of new and unnerving instincts. Before she had a chance to pull it back, he darted a hand down, catching her fingers in a strong grasp. Startled, she jumped, a gasp tearing from her lips, but he countered her panicked momentum, pulling her arm out past the threshold.

Elena wasn't sure what she expected — something horrible, of course — but all her stranger did at first was press a reassuring kiss to her palm. Stares locked, his grip loosened, a blatant test, and when she didn't jerk from his touch, he turned his head, long fingers firm around her shaky hand as it was guided, arm stretched taut through the gap in the window.

In a tantalizingly evanescent graze, his lush mouth strayed up to the oh-so very vulnerable spot of her bared wrist. Breathless, she watched in rapt intrigue as the veins around his eyes ran so rich they reddened, going varicose, and onyx irises filled with blood, spreading out to fill his whites. Lips gone deeper with color pulled at the corners when normal canine teeth elongated from their gums into sharpened inhuman fangs. The flash of insatiable hunger she saw revealed might have frightened her a month ago, or even a day ago, but tonight she understood it _too_ well.

There was no moment of hesitation before he struck, no warning at all, just the quick slice of his teeth sinking into her flesh and the brief but intense flare of pain which followed. With a yelp, she jerked against the invasion, an involuntary reaction, except his grip held her securely trapped, saving her from tearing open a vital artery in her escape. Lips falling apart in a soundless exclamation, she watched his throat work, felt the corresponding draws of her blood, her heartbeat increasing to pump it to him faster, before her head fell back from her neck and her spine bowed under a hit of odd but exhilarating sensation. Fire sparked at her nerve endings. Electricity arced in her veins as they coursed with the fluid of her essence. Muscles quivered. Warmth pooled low. Invigorating. Her fear was a distant creature.

Until he withdrew, a soft _pop_ of released suction, of pressure capsized, deft fingers uncoiled from their bruising bind, and she landed from her momentary high with a rude _thud_. Fear stirred once again in its rightful place as she felt her confusion returned and the universal shiver of a man pulling out of her assaulted body, leaving her both gratified and bereft.

As she whipped her arm back over the safety of the sill, her stranger merely slanted backward, propped against the iron elevation of the stairs, swiping drips of her stolen blood from his swollen mouth. He dipped the pad of his thumb past his lips, brought it out clean, never glancing away from her wide eyes, and said softly, liltingly, "Exquisite."

_Your exquisite potential._

A swift swirl of disturbing déjà vu tried to break through the haze but it was no match.

Cradling her wounded wrist to her chest, seeping blood, Elena scuttled backwards from him until she bumped against the side of the sofa, knees drawn up, pulse racing fierce in her own ears. They sat that way together for a long while, her breaths coming quick but her blood slowing soon, and echoes of thunder began to reverberate through the static charged air. As agitation faded, her own need resurfaced, gaining in fervor. He must not have taken much, because she didn't feel fainter at all, and the sear of his bite had leftover embers making the churning of her new hunger all the more acute. It was more than a desire, a basic need, an insistent impulse. It was something with a life itself. A coiling spirit. She felt almost possessed. And the pressure of it was building again. Clouds broke open as if in response. Rain poured down with little warning.

The heavy cadence of it pattering onto the roof, onto the streets below, onto the fire escape, rang with a rhythmic pattern, washing at her already wavering restraint. It fell strong and fast, drenching her stranger, who showed no signs of leaving yet. Knowing she hesitated at the verge of a precipice, breath hitched in her throat, heart pounding, her stranger wasn't going anywhere.

Finally, she pushed to her feet, moved closer again. Telling herself to close the window shut, because water was soaking her carpet where it gaped, nothing more. But when her fingers landed on the rusty ridge of the pane, ready to push it down, another swell of yearning swept her into its demanding current. Catching the bottom of the pane, she shoved it up so hard it smacked into its frame with a splintering sound of impact. Icy droplets splattered her curls, sharp against her face, as she dropped back down to her knees. The arc of her lower stomach pressed flush to the sill.

Standing in the chilly rainfall, he left the stairs behind, approached her with a languid swagger. As far out as she was leant, he probably could have snatched her from her sanctuary if he wanted. But as he sunk to level with her, resting on his haunches, passively aggressive, she wasn't worried.

"You can help me?"

"I can."

Elena wasn't afraid. Not in this moment. Not as she levered herself forward, palms digging into the steel of the sill, and captured his mouth in a cautious kiss. She had meant to be careful, and hesitant, and not lose control, except the sudden contact ignited them both. Before she could think better of it, she let his hands wrap around her upper arms, hoist her up, pull her forward the rest of the way. She collided with his body, a strong superior frame keeping her from careening any farther, and grabbed onto his shoulders, struggling for balance. She nearly had it when he spun her from the window, and she found herself crushed into the iron stairs, being kissed madly. Rain drenched her clothes, chilled her temperature even as he heated it, and she couldn't tell _what_ she was shivering for.

The hunger rose up inside, stealing control, and she writhed in the grips of it, of such power, of such delicious compensation. Lightning crackled violently somewhere nearby. Amidst the draw of her feeding — _devouring_ — she felt more ravenous than ever. The girl was absolutely certain she would have kept taking and taking like before, until there was nothing left at all, if he hadn't eventually torn from her deadly embrace. Ripping a soft unbridled whimper of protest from her then.

Gasping for breath, he doubled over, leaving her sprawled on the stairs amidst the charged revelry, his energy depleted, his pallor even paler now, chalky with extreme preternatural exhaustion.

But she was flying high in sated thrilled euphoria. Afterglow was a spectacular thing. This was like ... like ... well, _not_ like sex. This was phenomenal sex taken to the _nth_ degree. You couldn't do _this_ with your body. It'd kill you.

Just as she was coming around to her senses, her hunger quenched, her essence revitalized, her stranger returned to her, slanting to hover above her on the steps, unsteady bodies pressing together. Slick strands of ebony locks curled over his brow, dripping water into his eyes, onto her cheeks, her parted lips, as her chest heaved against him. The bridge of his nose brushed across the arc of her jaw. Wet lashes fluttered somewhere close to closed.

"Invite me in," he implored, voice sweet and sultry in her ear, mouth caressing her soaked skin, while his tone concealed just how much she'd taken from him, how vulnerable she'd left him for now.

Still only halfway aware, she answered on instincts, pleasantly enough, intimately unindulgent even. "No."

The ripple of laughter that escaped him was both genuinely amused and wryly disappointed. "You are merciless."

"Told you. It ain't gonna happen."

He kissed her once more, brief but deep, and then levered away, proclaiming lightly, "All in good time."

When she opened her eyes, pushed up onto her elbows, body trembling in the ferocious rain from more than just the unforgiving bite of the cold, her stranger was gone. Without a trace. Like always.

Elena smiled.

* * *

**TBC**


	8. Seventh

**Seventh**

* * *

A few days past, night fell and the runaway found herself curled into a corner of her sofa, elbow propped on the arm, neck propped by her palm, messy mane of hair pulled up into a sloppy bun, deep in idle conversation with the vampire lounging on the stairs of her fire escape. You know ... a normal night off work.

Just as she began drifting in lazy exhaustion, sinking into the lush grips of sleepy warmth, lingering remnants of fulfillment from feeding on such potent energy, infused with strength, borrowed power, a coaxing lilt stirred her back. "Come now, my dear. Don't leave me now."

"Tired," she murmured, burrowing her face into the overstuffed comfort of her sofa cushion.

Though her eyes never opened, she could _hear_ his smile. "I'm sure you are. But I'm lonely."

Sarcasm thickened her muffled cadence. "Go find one of your playmates."

"You are my favorite. I've come to see you. That sweet southern drawl of yours always makes me feel better on my bad days."

"Unh," she scoffed, shifting again, "_You_ have bad days? How is that even possible?"

Dry as bone, he retorted, "I am a person. Just like you. Subject to the quills and qualms of life."

"Quills? Is that like thrills?" she teased, finally picking her head up long enough to shoot him her most ironic expression.

Luscious lips parted in preparation for a witty rejoinder, her stranger suddenly went still. Almost as if the life fled him. Like a switch had been flipped, he became inanimate. Statuesque. Crystalline irises darkened as the monster within piqued to attention. Chilled with dread, Elena followed his straying gaze in time to catch the miniscule movement of her doorknob being jerked. The deadbolts were in place and the chain secured. But nothing more came. No pounding knock. Not another experimental tug at the front door handle. Just silence. Terrifying quiet.

Frozen, she wanted to get up, get moving, find something solid to grab onto and investigate. In her stifling anticipation, she couldn't break free.

Behind her, her stranger rose from his perch on the iron rail. Hearing the motion, she glanced over her shoulder, met his speaking stare. Just before he disappeared, he ordered, "Stay put."

_Stay put_. She wasn't certain why, but something about the moment snagged her from her fear, spun her up into an internal web of confusion and intrusion. _Stay put, girl_. His voice echoed over her consciousness, faded and faint, leaving behind only a vague impression of erased thought but an intense imprint of repressed emotion. _Stay put_.

Woken from dreams of her mother screaming somewhere far off, somewhere she couldn't get to, Elena had rolled from her bed in a sleep stupor and stumbled for her door. Maybe she was going for the bathroom. Or maybe her subconscious understood what her present mind hadn't about what she'd heard in her REM and was driving her to her mother. Either way, she never made it farther than the hallway, shadows crawling up the narrow length, dimly lit by moonlight.

There was a figure who stood in her path. An indiscernible silhouette. Alarm jumped her heart and the girl lurched awake. Her back hit the wall, knocking a family photo off a hook, and she got a glimpse past the intruder into her mother's open doorway. Splatters splashed across the wall, bright and vivid and wrong against the pale shine of night light streaming in the window.

As the frame clattered to the floor, glass cracking, she felt a scream rip up from her chest. Before it could sound, a cold hand clamped over her mouth, pinning her jaw locked. Wrenching, she kicked out, caught him in the shin and tried to duck past the shadow assailant. But he caught the girl around the waist with an arm, whirled her off her feet, and suddenly she was set down in her bedroom, his towering form blocking her escape. Still smothering her mouth, he clasped her by the shoulder, stepping into a patch of silvery illumination, bringing sharp features into focus, and forced her to meet his piercing gaze.

"Stay put, girl. Stay put." At the lilted caress of his growly voice, shivers spindled up her spine. Her panic receded for no sane reason. It left her ... docile. "You stay right here. Go back to bed. Don't come out until morning. Hear me?"

Because he still covered her mouth, lips flattened harshly under his cool palm, she nodded. Eyes wide and white in the darkness, she watched him let go, watched him back from her room, shut her all alone inside, and never once made a move to protest. There wasn't desire left to do so. In fact, as the minutes ticked on by, her brain clouded up, leaving her confused and sleepy again. Memory of the intruder went hazy, like a half-remembered dream, before she went back to bed.

_Why_? she wondered. Why would she have ever forgotten something like _that_? Her mother. That night. He was there. And she did _nothing_. All this time, she suspected her poor father. Distrusted him. Ran away from him. Because of monsters and their tricks. _Fucking mind games_.

By the time her stranger returned, Elena had snapped from her shock, pushed down urges to retch in her revulsion, her hurt, her fear, and was ready for him with the window lifted wide open. Setting a single red rose down on the sill when he hopped up onto her level, stem full of thorns, he was telling her, "Whoever it was at your door was gone before I got around. An impressive feat, I must say. Probably just your secret admirer. Nothing to worry about." Gesturing to the red rose, he added, "This was left for you."

Standing still, hands held behind her back, she waited for him to notice the change, see how she had paled so drastically, how her expressive heart-shaped face had blanked. Once he noticed, venturing closer to the glass, she dropped onto her knees against the sill, knowing he would too. Behind her back, she ran the pad of her thumb over sharp teeth of a spinner, flicked it awake.

"Lena," he began, voice down low, a perfectly feigned display of concern. "What is it?"

With one hand wrapped around a bottle of little-used hairspray, another fitted to a Bic lighter, items dug from a kitchen drawer and a bathroom cabinet in a state of stormy calm, she pulled up and punched a burst of aerosol chemicals. Hitting the open flame, it ignited in a whoosh of fire. But the bastard was quicksilver. His preternatural reflexes saved him from anything more serious than a singed shirtsleeve. Still, she aimed the makeshift flamethrower, followed his movement, right until the burst gave out, just in case he came back into range.

The complete and utter astounded disbelief on his face gave her an imperceptible twinge of satisfaction but it was nowhere near enough. "What on Earthhas gotten into you?!"

"You were there that night," she accused, gritting it out through her teeth, seething with fury. "You're the one. You're the monster who murdered my mother."

At the more worrying one of her attacks, his exasperation fell into guilty realization. She had finally managed to fluster her stranger. Too bad she no longer cared. All she wanted was blood. And he could see it in her eyes. "Wait. Elena. No." She flicked the lighter again, brought up fire, but he didn't back down. "You've got it all wrong."

Lethally low, no mercy to be found, she demanded, "Get out of here."

"Just give me a moment to explain—"

"Go!" she snarled, depressing the nozzle of the spray, casting a widespread snake of flame to chase him away. "Get out of my sight!"

Only once the fire petered out did he vault over the rail and drop to the dirty pavement below, and only after sparing her a last regretful glance of onyx eyes gone soulful. A brand new mask. It didn't move her. Didn't make her sickening hatred falter. It just made her insides burn hotter.

Brushing the burnt rose off the sill, letting it fall, she slammed the window shut and locked it. Promised herself if she ever saw her stranger again, she would kiss him into death. If she couldn't burn him alive. Never had she felt so violated. Her skin crawled with disgust. With loathing.

Except ...

The instinctive awareness of what he'd done wasn't what scared her most of all. It was what she herself had almost _given into_ that kept her up all night.

* * *

As time went on, and more sick gifts made their way to the girl, left on her doorstep or her sill or at the diner or inside the sports car she refused to use, encouraging random acts of vandalism, she became more and more convinced it was her stranger after all. Who else would it be? No one. Just another one of his depraved games. Had to be.

In fact, she could not believe she had been so blinded by his insidious charm, by her own need for connection, to have made so many flimsy excuses. Of course it was her stranger responsible. Nobody else had ever haunted Elena. And resolving to such a theory only stoked the warmth of her fury into hotter heights. By the time the lull of passing days was broken, she was more than ready for a fight. Confrontation. Conflict. Resolution. Whatever.

But it didn't come as she'd expected. Because nothing was ever how she thought it to be.

When her boss let her off an overtime graveyard shift early, she wasn't gonna stick around just to wait for sunrise. She wasn't afraid of the dark anymore. The uglies hidden in shadows couldn't scare her now. Not something as intangible as the vague ideas of their threats at least. She was sick of being petrified. Dared them to jump out at her. Wanted to protect herself. Thought she was capable of it now that she'd bloomed, now that she knew who she was, knew what she could do. Believed she didn't have to be powerless. Believed she could handle herself.

She was wrong.

Nightfall rested thick and suffocating over the dirty city. But she was having trouble breathing light or dark lately, so she didn't mind it much. Getting home from work exhausted, she came in the door humming an earworm, straw pinched between her teeth, sipping at her fountain coke, not paying any attention to her surroundings, as if she were a normal girl in a normal world with no worries of obsessed homicidal vampires.

Heading first to the fridge, she shoved diner leftovers onto an otherwise empty shelf, lost in her own head, until some primitive sense of instinct pricked at her distracted awareness. Stilled, she reached blindly to the side, flicked on the kitchen light without moving her feet, fingers biting into the edge of the open fridge. Sickly fluorescents flooded the apartment with dim illumination. Emerald eyes darted directly to the fire escape. But the window was clear. The problem was _inside_.

Trailing drizzles of some rich substance cut a path across the living room floor all the way into her bedroom, door swung open wide revealing a black abyss, marring her ivory carpet horribly. There would be no security deposit return. It wasn't the sight of the blood, left for a purpose and arranged so artfully, which alarmed her. Frozen, for an acutely startled moment, all she could do was stare, not quite absorbing realization. The macabre invitation was accented by rose petals. That was when she knew.

Unable to speak, or scream, despite words and wails clawing at the base of her tight throat, Elena let go of the fridge, forced her feet forward, painstakingly so. Before she reached her door, she slipped a hand into the bag hooked on her shoulder and wrapped trembling fingers around her trusty taser. The safety switch on the side of its bulk she could find blind. With a deft stroke, she got the thing buzzing softly, building an electric charge.

Though her heart hammered against her ribcage with such force it spread a knotted snarl of heavy pain through her chest, her breath stayed hitched in her constricted throat, stuck for good, and her pulse throbbed distractingly in her ears, blood rushing with adrenalized fear.

Standing in the doorway, looking in at a room of darkness unshrouded only by a soft sliver of blue moonlight streaming through an uncovered window, she saw only one thing, registered just one sight. _Sonya_. Her new friend. Her persistent irritant. Strewn across her joke of a bed as if she'd been purposely posed. Just like the bloodied flower path. But the pixie girl wasn't bloody. She was simply lifeless. Body stripped bare. Unmarred but so white and sterile as to seem unreal, like a marble statue, sheets furled over lower thighs and across shoulders like ribbons on a gift. Lips parted in an old cry. Fingers fixed in a horrid convulsion, clinging to nothing, gone rigid. Eyes open and empty but not yet milky as her mother's had gotten in death.

The only imperfection of the entire display was the bruising which circled her delicate neck. Not like she'd been strangled. But almost as if it'd been broken. What a quick way to go.

Obscenely, she felt a swell of relief as she comprehended, and it snapped Elena free of her daze with a gasp and an involuntary jerk of her body. The man that stepped from the shadows at her jagged intake of breath was one she had never seen before.

No. _Wait_. She _had_ seen him before. At the grocery market. At the diner. On a street corner. In a convenience store as he stood right beside her while she filled a fountain drink or a slushie or an iced coffee. A handsome but unremarkable face lost amidst the sea of a cheering crowd in the bleachers back at home on a game night. She had seen him everywhere and nowhere at once. She had just never _met_ him. Or expected him.

It stopped her heart for a second. That look in his silver eyes caught her hard. She may not have recognized his shadowed features, but she sure as hell knew the preternatural glow of those animal eyes.

_Impossible. It can't be._

"How did you get in here?" she wanted to know as her finger dipped of its own accord to lever a spark of electricity between steel prongs at her side, a warning she shouldn't have given him. The voice she heard didn't sound like her at all. It was steady, if not breathless, and really hollow.

The monster smiled, letting out a low purr of pleasure, as he moved closer step by lazy step. "Your friend was lovely enough to invite me."

Still hollow of tone, she said flatly, "Which made her useless. So you killed her."

"Couldn't help myself." What might have been a sheepish expression flitted across his face. "Perhaps I should have saved her for you. Might have made a savory morsel for your ... appetite. But I wanted this moment to be between you and I alone."

Something about his blasé manner shocked her into a similar state, fueled by quiet seething, blood boiling slowly, patiently, system stirring for anticipated violence. Backing away, she shifted her grip on the taser, dropped her bag aside, luring him out into the open space of the studio area. "So you're my Romeo, huh? Gotta tell ya — your poetry could use a tune up."

"Not a fan of the eloquently written word, I see?" he countered amusedly, matching her pace.

"There is a difference between eloquent and pompous," she retorted, letting her tongue work its natural magic while her mind whirred for an escape hatch.

This pulled an affectionate chuckle from her admirer. "Oh, Elena. My sweet succubus."

"Don't make me sick." There wasn't any need to fake a grimace as nausea roiled her insides. But the spat spurred him into motion as she'd guessed. In his quicksilver advance, she spun too, sidestepped to catch him in the side with her taser. Except a crushing vice captured her wrist before charged prongs could make contact. As the weapon skittered across the kitchen linoleum, pain exploded in a splinter of carpus bone, shooting shards of liquid lava up nerve endings along her dominant arm, and ripping a surprised shriek from the girl.

Never losing his casual air of ultimate indifference, her monster twisted the hold upward, rotating her shoulder at a stressing angle, and her knees buckled, giving out under the weight of her. When she hit the floor, doubled over, catching herself by palm to carpet before her face could hit, he released her, and the arm coiled inward on its own, winged protectively to her chest.

Through gnashed teeth, sucking in a sharp breath, she hissed, "Bastard."

"Retract the claws, pussycat." The roll of his eyes infused his crisp cadence. "Feed yourself and you will heal nearly as efficiently as I do."

"Feed myself," she growled, pushing to her feet with a surge of anger, "Great idea."

But he caught her by the throat, bent her into his raised knee, digging it into her ribcage, before he sent her rolling across the floor, stopped only by a harsh impact against a cabinet. Huddled in on herself, body still reverberating with pained shock, she could only lay and listen as he sauntered an arc around her apartment, ecstatically taunting his paramour.

"Your mother was a much better sport. And she was only human."

_My mother_? her brain echoed, stuttering past physical distress to be swamped by emotional.

Noticing her flinch, stilling in a dead giveaway to a weak spot, her monster curved a sly grin. "Would you like me to tell you about the night I spent with the lovely Mrs. Gilbert? _Hmm_, Elena? That muggy Virginia night I took everything she had to give. Left her there for her husband to find. Would you like to hear all the gory details or just the gist?"

"_Fucker_!" she rasped, heaving harsh breaths now, struggling to clamber off the kitchen floor, failing pathetically to manage it.

"I followed you to this wretched city partly because of her, you know. You so very resemble your lovely mother. And she was such a stunning creature." With a wry little laugh, he added, "One would think _she_ was the one you'd inherited from. Honestly enchanting." Then he paused, lowered into an agile crouch where she sprawled, and dusted wisps of gold from her angry eyes. "Tasted exquisite as well."

Aching inside, battered and bruised, Elena saw red. Lunging forward, she knocked herself into the perversely mirthful monster, flinging onto him like a damaged damsel on her knight. Only _this_ damsel was out for blood. She smashed her mouth against his before he could evade it. That enticing well of hunger deep down in the pit of her being, dormant like a sleeping savage, ignited in a spark of rage. With fast and furious jolt, she latched onto his essence and _pulled_. Unfortunately, just as she felt that first delicious ripple of stolen energy, he thrust her away.

The powerful force of it meant she crashed brutally into an already dented cabinet behind her. Crying out as her bones rattled, she dug fingertips into palms for a brace, clung to that puny shred of strength she'd sapped. Knees curved up towards her chest. Eyes hooded with pain, she watched as he rose to tower over her meek form, a slow smile shaping his kiss-swollen lips.

"Marvelous," he crowed. "You are already getting the hang of it. A little skilled instruction and you won't be so sloppy. Concentrated affect is your best weapon. Right now you're a blunt edge. Soon, though, I will have you sharp and precise."

Tears streaked down her flushed cheeks. Had been for awhile. "You won't have me anything."

"Oh?"

But she paid no mind to her tears or her screaming injuries. "Because I'm going to kill you."

"What fiery conviction you have!" he mocked, a cool cadence of singsong cheer that grated, made her skin crawl with dark urges. But she was still reeling from his abuse and her beaten body served a limiting prison for her retaliatory fire. So when he circled back around to where she sat, bending to reach for her, she was sure it would hurt.

Except it didn't. Something else entirely happened.

Lightning struck outside on the street. The crackle of it arcing overhead was deafening and sent aftershock vibrations outward in the form of quivering particles in the suddenly staticy air. That alone mightn't even have caught her attention if not for the implosion of glass that followed. A window shattered, glass shards flying inward, scattering across the apartment. What remained was her stranger, looking pissed and practical, arms spread high, hands cracking the frame.

Confusing web of mingled sensations blossomed in the girl. But relief reigned over wary.

Voice fiercer than she'd ever heard it, or any other, he ordered, "Elena. Invite me in."

"Don't!" her monster snarled, whirling dangerously on the huddled blonde.

_The devil you know_, her brain whispered encouragingly, even as her distrust planted doubt. Ultimately, how worse could things get? Choice erupted from her in a breathless rush of words. "Come in. _Please_. Please come inside."

In a blur of high-velocity motion, of disturbed atmosphere, her _favorite stranger ever_ entered unseen, slamming bodily into the other man, knocking him away from her vulnerable position. For a girl who'd never seen two supernatural baddies duke it out, Elena thought she handled it pretty darn well. But her human eyesight couldn't track hardly any of their fray. All she could use were the broken bits of destruction left in their wake to judge how it was going.

From what she gleaned, the two were fairly evenly matched.

Biting down on the vehement protests of her poor body, she pushed herself onto her shins, grabbing up a nearby splinter, something thick and long like a crude knife, broken off the cabinet her back had ruined. God, no wonder she _ached_ in agony! On her feet, she swayed and staggered, yet somehow managed to stay upright, if not hunched over like an old maid, her body naturally curving around her middle, cradling what felt like a fractured rib.

Thrown onto his back in a mess of glass, nose bloodied, silvered eyes flashing, her stranger rolled out of the way of a stomping boot, caught the offending ankle, and twisted the other one off balance. While he wavered, her stranger kicked out, heels together, and thrust him backwards. At the force of it, her monster careened, and Elena was right there waiting for him.

To catch him as he fell. To drive the jagged piece of wood into his flesh. Feeling truly visceral, completely unlike herself, alien even, she thrust all her weight into the upward slant of her elbow. Despite her diminutive strength, inferior to begin with and just plain pathetic currently, she drove it in deep. Past tough muscle. Between blades of bone. Let his own momentum work in her favor.

As it pierced his heart, ripping a satisfying gasp from the monster, a sound of pained disbelief, she turned her cheek, pressing her lips to his ear, and rasped roughly, "Told ya."

The monster collapsed at her feet without flair. The girl _just barely_ avoided following suit. Though various body parts still screamed in distress, and her burnt nerves sizzled, Elena herself had gone cold. Maybe _numb_ was the more apt word for it.

In her periphery, some part of her noted the delighted pride in the wry grin from her stranger. Drawling cheerfully as he picked himself up and dusted himself off, he scoured the dead man with an indecipherable look. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"You knew him?"

Easy cadence he held soothed her fried nerve endings. "That's Lysander, love. My brother."

"_What_?"

Eyes widening, he amended, "Not my _true _brother, of course. We share a sire. Raised together in the same House."

"I don't know what that means," was all she said in return.

Stepping carelessly over the discolored corpse, which was already beginning to disintegrate, her stranger reached her exactly in time to scoop her up in his arms when her body gave out and she slipped limply towards the floor. The last dregs of her adrenaline were officially used up.

Elena was only half aware as he carried her into the bedroom, intent on setting her to rest, only to change his mind, finding the air mattress occupied by a dead girl. "Too bad," he mused, his lilting tone soft and unburdened, while he laid her gently across the ivory sofa, "I sort of liked that chipper little thing."

"Me too," she murmured, lulled by gradually oncoming delirium. Next thing she was aware of was a metallic tang on her tongue, a rich thick fluid sliding down her bruised throat, stirring her weary senses with some invigorating magical drug that had her head spinning. In a good way. Lifting her head, she yanked herself free of an assisting grasp, pulled her mouth away from a wrist seeping with blood. Unnaturally chill blood. Forcing fluttering eyes open, it took a beat to focus on the familiar aristocratic features hovered above her place on the sofa. Licking her lips clean, she catalogued injuries, trying to count wounds faster than all the aches and pains were fading. Propped on her elbows, she nudged him away with her knee and asked, "Did you just make me drink your blood?"

"That I did."

"Stupid question. _Why_?"

"The evening is early, my dear. We've lots to do. And it seemed easier than letting you suck me dry."

With a wince, head falling back, Elena groaned. "That sounded _so_ wrong."

Offering up an unrepentant smirk, her stranger countered, "Or _did_ it?"

"Never. Gonna. Happen."

* * *

After such an altercation, a horrific nightmare to the girl, a common occurrence to the man, many things had to be done. _To prevent further complications,_ as he called it. Bagging up the body of his brethren took top priority so as to avoid a worse mess should he be allowed to decompose where he lay any longer than necessary. And the human in the bedroom had to be handled with extra care. Unlike his brother, who had been legally dead for over a century, Sonya was one of the living. Leaving lots of DNA evidence around wasn't the smartest notion. But he assured the girl it wouldn't be too much of an issue if they missed anything.

"No one knew she was coming here. Sad as it is, she was on her own. No family. It won't be connected to you. And there isn't anyone to look."

Though he'd meant it to be comforting, his words only made her unravel. Numbness only got a girl so far. During her emotional outburst, she remembered why she'd been mad at him before, remembered he had things to answer for. Lashing out felt nice. Or at least better than wallowing.

"Yes, you are absolutely right. I owe you an explanation."

While he worked with tarps and corpses and bleach and scrubbing brushes, he explained it. Her stranger had been watching her for a long time. Ever since he first glimpsed her on the street in her tiny little middle class Virginia town and felt the telltale frissons of tantalizing electricity as signs to her kind. Like he said once before, succubi were rare at this end of the world. He was intrigued. "So sue me." But in his fascination, he kept an eye on the young seductress in progress, which was how he happened to be nearby the night her mother was murdered. "My only interest was making sure you were safe, I'll admit."

"How did you get in?" she questioned, not bothering to hide her healthy suspicion.

Flashing a crooked grin, he answered, "I told you I was watching you. To learn of your history, I paid your father a visit. Influenced an invitation into your home out of him. We had a nice chat."

Accusatory emerald eyes narrowing sharply, she skipped over such a tidbit. "What the hell were you even doing in Mystic Falls to begin with?"

"Visiting an old friend. Anyway, I didn't know that irksome cad Lysander had tailed me there."

"So it _is_ your fault."

Leveling a serious stare on her, he said, "I'm afraid so. At least in part. But I saved you. Doesn't that count for anything?"

_Does it?_ she wondered. Aloud, she replied, "Just continue your story."

"Truth is, sweetheart, I knew the moment I laid eyes on you that I had to have you. I had to make you mine. Eventually. You see, I am a patient creature. You were so young. Had so much to grow into. And I was willing to wait for the opportune time to cross our paths."

"How gentlemanly of you," she deadpanned, sarcasm richening her smoky voice.

He went on as if uninterrupted. "Lysander forced my hand. That night, I only came by to look in on you, as I'd done on several occasions. Except the scent of blood was heavy in the air."

Breathless, she prompted, "And?"

"I couldn't very well ignore the situation, could I? But I was too late for your mother. She was already gone. So was Lysander for that matter. When you came out to check, I caught you first."

"And hypnotized me into staying in my room until morning. So I wouldn't see her like that?"

In response, her stranger merely gave the girl a solemn nod. "I assumed your father would find her before then, sparing you the trauma. I wasn't aware he was out of town on business."

"So he claimed. But he never could prove it, because the conference he was supposed to be attending got canceled, and he never mentioned it. Not until the sheriff went digging." Pausing, she had to stifle a swell of shame, unable to forgive herself for all the horrible things she'd thought of her dad, who'd only ever treated her right. Even if he had distanced himself. Even if he had lied. "That was why I worried about the possibility it was him who ..."

From the reflective look in his eyes as her stranger captured her wavering gaze, she was sure she needn't finish. Which was a good thing. Since she didn't think she could.

Once there were no words left to form, leaving all the rest safely unspoken, he left her there to take care of the actual _disposal_ part of disposing of bodies. When he returned, it was to find her curled up in the bathtub, dry as bone. Her eyes were dry too. But he must've recognized the blank fractured expression shadowing her heart-shaped features, because he climbed in without invitation, shaping himself around her trembling body with care, holding her close.

"I invited you in," she whispered after a long while of companionable silence, "Tell me."

He grinned. She felt it surface as a soft move of his lips against the nape of her neck. "Elijah."

"Elijah?" she echoed, losing a bit of that hollow tone, livening the slightest. "Like _Madonna_? Just _Elijah_?"

That faint slip tattooed to her nape became something wildly pleased. "Elijah Mikaelson, actually."

The girl swivels a little, shifting until she is curled on her side against him, and rests her cheek at the strong joint of his shoulder, fingers furling softly over the corded muscle of his forearms where they stayed wrapped around her breakable body. Her eyes roamed the room sightlessly, blinking as she rested for respite in a state of numbed daze, as if anesthetized. "That's a strange surname. Just how old _are_ you?"

The man tightened his hold on her just a bit, not enough to keep her from breathing but plenty enough to keep her with him as long as he desired, pressed securely against him. He gave a soft sigh at her words, lowering his temple to her crown, and murmured, "Too old to count for you, my love." Then, in dire need of lightening the mood, of lessening the pressure of silence, "You should meet me _true_ brothers. The ones I was born by. They will enjoy you immensely, I'd say."

Eyes falling shut, she lets herself drift in the comforting solace of dark unknown. Lightly, sleepily, she mutters, "Long as nobody tries to kill me."

And his moment of hesitation is quite telling. Arms tighten a bit more. "Well, I will not allow it."

"How reassuring," she drawls, dripping dry sarcasm, but merely burrows deeper into his body. "Now I've been bitten _and_ I've drank vampire blood. Am I gonna become one of the undead?"

"Transition does not work that way."

"Oh. Good."

* * *

Days later, and not many at that, Elena had packed her stuff, fitting all worldly possessions into a few duffels, quit her job for Walt with a check for a measly hundred bucks, and given notice to her super Mr. Zuko.

Life in the gritty city just couldn't be the answer. Not for Elena. Not anymore.

Despite parting on relatively good terms, she hadn't seen her stranger since that horrid night and could admit, reluctantly if not readily, she was kind of disappointed. But it was silly to doubt. At the bus station, she was about to board a Greyhound at 10, dusky darkness no longer feared, when Elijah chose to show.

"Disappearing into the night is my thing, darling. _You_ are lousy at it."

"I'm not sneaking off," she countered, an impish smile twitching stubbornly at her mouth as she rotated on a heel at the sound of his low lilt and found him leant suavely against a lamppost, "I'm going home."

"About time," he quipped, beckoning her closer with a playful wave of lithe fingers, making her step into the pool of sickly light shining above the pair. "You don't belong in the city. Not this one, anyway."

Brows arched, she purred playfully, "Good thing I'm not staying then."

The call came for her departure over the station intercom before their familiar foreplay banter could go any farther. Letting his gaze wander leisurely over the girl one last time, he sighed in heavy burdened resignation and sent her on her way before his willpower had a chance to vanish altogether. "See you around, sweetheart."

* * *

**finis**


End file.
